


Miwaku no Zakuro

by Tcharlatan



Series: Zakuro [1]
Category: Dir en grey, Phantasmagoria, X JAPAN
Genre: Alternate Universe - Yakuza, Anal Sex, Angst, Betrayal, Brainwashing, Cock & Ball Torture, Collars, Consent Issues, Consent under Duress, Dehumanization, Drugged Sex, Dysfunctional Relationships, Gunplay, Gunshot Wounds, Isolation, Kidnapping, Kinbaku (Japanese Rope Bondage), Light Masochism, M/M, Master/Slave, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Possessive Behavior, Rope Bondage, Sadism, Self-Harm, Sexual Coercion, Sexual Slavery, Situational Humiliation, Starvation, Stockholm Syndrome, Torture, Training, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2012-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-20 12:11:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 40
Words: 127,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tcharlatan/pseuds/Tcharlatan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man with a desperate addiction falls into debt with Kaoru Niikura, and his best friend winds up paying the price; bartered into slavery as the mob lord's pet.</p><p>(AU - no prior familiarity with characters necessary)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ‘Men, when they receive good from whence they expect evil, feel the more indebted to their benefactor.’ ~Niccolo Machiavelli

Long legs trudged down familiar streets, their owner’s elegantly androgynous face downturned with strife. Red and black hair was cropped short and teased into soft spikes in the back, but long around his face, parted to obscure the left side. From behind the scarlet veil, dark grey eyes navigated absently over gaping cracks in the sidewalk and around homeless people stretched out under any available awnings for the night, dismissing the obstacles under the weight of their own troubles. The young man’s options had been very explicitly laid out for him, and he knew what he had to do, but he hated it. If only his luck had held out just a little longer. If only his winning streak had stretched just a little further. If only the bastard he owed such a monumental debt to would just give him a little more time to win his money back. If only…

_‘It’s a hell of a mess I’ve gotten myself into this time…’_

He stopped in front of the ill-maintained apartment building he called home, and sneered halfheartedly at the large stone holding the front door ajar. In his mind, he could easily imagine his roommate’s familiar grumble, haughty but good-natured: “Why bother having a security door in the entrance if it’s always propped open?” He kicked the rock aside and passed through the dimly-lit entry hall to a narrow staircase, mounting rickety steps to the second story hallway. Jamming his key in the lock of the second door to the left, he wrenched it to one side until the stubborn mechanism gave way and granted him access to his home.

The difference between his apartment and the building it was in could be a bit jarring, even after four years living there. Though small, it was well-lit and kept immaculately clean. Every hole, crack, and blemish in the walls was covered with a framed photo, a poster, or a hanging scroll or tapestry. Furniture was carefully arranged to afford the best possible use of limited space, stains and patched holes in the old upholstery hidden under neatly-draped throw blankets. Books, CDs, and anime figurines were displayed on shelves mounted along the walls, and the sill under the only window was home to a collection of lovingly-tended potted cacti. He felt more at home in this cheap little apartment than he ever had anywhere else. Kicking off heavy boots, the young man stepped inside and shut the door behind him. The stale, dusty air of the hall faded away in the wake of the warm, herbal smell of cooking food.

A curious face peeked around the corner from the kitchen, unruly blonde hair with black roots a mess of soft, haphazard spikes falling around full cheeks. Burnt-gold eyes brightened on seeing the newcomer, and the shorter man smiled. “Oh, Kisaki, it’s you. You’re home early; I thought we were being robbed or something!”

Kisaki forced himself to smile at his roommate. “Hey, Kyo. The cards just weren’t falling in my favor tonight, so I called it quits early.”

Kyo seemed pleased. He had never approved of his roommate’s gambling habits, so he was always happy when the younger man exercised restraint in the face of a losing streak. He disappeared back into the kitchen as he called out, “That’s too bad. Maybe some dinner will cheer you up? I got a lot of tips tonight, so I splurged a little and got us some good beef for gyuudon!”

Kisaki winced a little. His roommate – a month his senior and his best friend since they were teenagers – had always taken such good care of him. Kyo was the one responsible for the tiny apartment being as clean and comfortable as it was, always cooked enough for both of them in spite of Kisaki’s odd hours, and was always ready with a smile when the younger man had a bad day. He was distrustful of people in general and tended to be somewhat antisocial, leading many who knew him to think he was cold and maybe even a little strange in the head, but once he warmed up to someone, Kyo deeply cherished the small handful of true friends he had. He was a distinctly different person in their company; when they were alone, Kisaki only ever saw the sweetness and compassion lying very close to his roommate’s bones.

In another time, another place, they might even have been lovers. Kisaki knew the blonde had harbored feelings for him in the past, and if he weren’t so thoroughly consumed by his own addictions, he might have reciprocated them. They could have been happy together, if only…

But there was nothing for it now.

 _‘I don’t deserve you, Kyo… I’ve never deserved your friendship, and now-… I’m so sorry for what I’m about to do to you… I’m so sorry…’_ He sighed. “Thanks, Kyo, that… that sounds great.”

“It’s just about done, why don’t you grab some bowls and help me put it together?”

The younger man did as he was bid and filled two bowls with the waiting rice, handing them one by one for Kyo to top with the beef and onions that had been simmering on the stove. While the blonde filled two smaller bowls with miso soup from another pot, Kisaki cracked eggs over both of the gyuudon dishes and carried them to the coffee table that also served as their dining table. Kyo followed with soup and utensils, settling onto a cushion on the floor while his taller roommate sat on the couch.

Kisaki steeled himself, forcing himself to speak casually as he stared at his meal, “So… after dinner, do you… do you want to go out?”

“Hmm?” Kyo mumbled around a mouthful of food.

The redhead couldn’t bring himself to look at his friend as he continued, “I’m supposed to hang out with some… friends later and they… they wanted to meet you.”

Kyo swallowed and cocked his head with a curious smile. “It’s kind of late, but I don’t have work tomorrow and I guess we haven’t gone out together in a while, so… why not?”

Kisaki nodded and a heavy silence fell between them as they ate. Kyo eyed his roommate worriedly, his troubled gaze going completely unnoticed as the younger man’s dark grey stare remained fixed on his meal. Kisaki frequently got himself into little funks of depression, usually after a bout of poor luck at the gambling parlor, but it was rare that one would be so pervasive. The blonde guessed that his friend’s losing streak must have been worse than he originally thought, and sighed quietly to himself.

_‘Guess I’ll be paying all of rent this month. **Again**. No more splurging on food, then.’ _

When they finished eating, Kyo moved to collect their dishes, but Kisaki interrupted him with one hand. “I’ll take care of these. You should go find something to wear.”

Kyo paused for a moment, surprised; Kisaki never did dishes. Looking down at himself, taking in his loose-fitting band tee-shirt and jeans, he frowned a little. “What’s wrong with this? Did I get food on myself?”

The younger man looked uncomfortable as he carried their bowls to the kitchen. “Just, you know… it’s too… casual. Dress like you would for a club or… or for your work. Something fun!”

Kyo watched his roommate disappear into the kitchen and shrugged, heading obediently to his room. Between the two of them, Kisaki was the hopeless fashion victim, but he could put together a decent outfit when the need struck him. He had to, if he wanted to make any money; nobody wanted to watch a dancer in plain street clothes, and if no one was watching, no one was tipping. He just didn’t generally like to dress up in his down time.

With a sigh, he stripped and pulled on a pair of fitted black pinstripe overalls with a massive golden dragon embroidered up the side. He wore no shirt underneath it, showing off the smattering of tattoos decorating his wrist and upper arms. He couldn’t afford as many as he wanted, but the ones he had – a butterfly on one arm, a dragon on the other, the crown of the Russian empire on a wrist, and Russian writing down the backs of his fingers on one hand – were excellent quality, and he was terribly proud of them. Wide, black leather cuffs snapped around both of his wrists over a couple of simple chain bracelets, and a haphazard multitude of necklaces adorned his neck.

He was never entirely sure about this outfit, no matter how many times Kisaki told him how much he liked it. The suspender straps over his bare shoulders made him feel too young, somehow… innocent. It would have to do, though; he hadn’t laundered any of his other work clothes yet this week. Making a face at himself in the mirror, he ran a hand through his hair and made his way back to the living room where his roommate was waiting. The taller man was staring at his watch, face taut with anxiety.

“This okay?” Kyo asked his friend, slipping his feet into heavy black boots and kneeling to tie them. “Nothing else is clean.”

Head bowed, he missed Kisaki’s pained stare, and how the younger man bit his lower lip before answering, “Yeah, that… that’s great, Kyo.”

They left the apartment and began to walk towards the outer edge of downtown. The more time that went by – the longer the uncomfortable silence stretched between them – the more Kyo began to worry about Kisaki. The taller man was trudging along as if to his execution, shoulders slumped unhappily, and his eyes were unusually distant. Kyo disliked seeing his friend so unhappy, and hoped he would cheer up when they got to wherever they were going.

“So… umm… how was work?” the blonde ventured, rubbing his bare arms against a chill brought on by crisp autumn winds.

“Huh?” Kisaki blinked out of his stupor and looked down at his older friend.

“Work… how was it, today?”

“Oh… it was alright, I guess. Same as always. You?”

“Pretty good, actually. There was a big party that came in towards the end of the night and they tipped really well. We had the good DJ tonight, too, so the music was actually decent.”

“That’s… that’s great.” Kisaki looked back down again, staring at the sidewalk as it passed beneath him. “…Hey, Kyo?”

Kyo deflated a little. His friend’s voice was still so despondent. “Yeah?”

“Do you ever want… something more out of life? To be more than just a dancer in some seedy little club?”

“Well… sure, someday. It’s an okay job for now, but I’m not going to do it forever.”

“But do you have any plans? Like going back to school or… whatever…”

Kyo chuckled at that. “Not really; you know I’ve never been one for studying or getting up early for class. Last year, I thought I’d be getting married by now, but since Takara left me… I guess for now I’m just going to live life as it comes to me until I figure out what I’m going to do with myself.”

Kisaki nodded and Kyo just watched his roommate curiously. What odd questions to ask all of a sudden… He didn’t press the conversation any further, brought down into his own funk by the memory of his ex-fiancée. Hopelessly in love, he’d saved every spare yen he made for a solid year to buy his girlfriend a ring, planning out his proposal down to the last detail. But when he’d popped the question, she’d simply given him a sympathetic little smile and explained to him that she’d only been with him out of convenience, and to get close to one of Kyo’s friends who was notorious for wanting what those around him possessed. It had worked: they’d been sleeping around behind his back for months before he proposed. Before her, he’d considered himself essentially pansexual, but their breakup had put him off of women for the time being, preferring the more straight-forward desires of a small handful male partners that came and went without pretense or games.

Almost half an hour later, the blonde looked up from his musing and was a bit disappointed to find himself standing in front of a familiar building. Small but bustling, its stone façade shining bright with garish neon lights, people in all manner of dress (and, in some cases, undress) milling around out front smoking, and the music pouring out from the open doors was powerful and exhilarating. The shorter man balked a bit, cringing – Zakuro was a somewhat shady club, and a favorite hangout for local criminals – but followed his roommate dutifully through the front doors. It wasn’t his scene, but if this was what it took to cheer Kisaki up, he could set aside his discomfort for the evening.

As they approached the bar, Kyo eyed his surroundings warily. The open part of the floor was a swirling cacophony of smoke and flashing rainbow lights over a writhing mass of drunken, wanton dancers. The air was oppressive, hot and thick with the smell of stale sweat and cheap beer. As they passed a booth, he made a face at the trio of young women within, shamelessly engaged in thoroughly carnal activities for anyone to see. He stopped when he noticed his friend was walking past the bar, towards a door tucked into the corner with a mountain of a man standing watch in front of it.

Kyo grabbed the younger man’s arm with one hand. “Saki, wait.”

“What?” Kisaki asked, avoiding the blonde’s questioning stare.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to go back there, isn’t that where the fucking mafia hangs out?”

“It’s just a… a private room, you know? For… parties, and stuff. That’s where my friends are waiting for us.”

“Are you sure? Look at the guy standing in front of the door! He’s huge, he looks like a bouncer or something.”

“It’s alright, I promise.” Kisaki felt a little queasy as he forced himself to smile. “Don’t you trust me?

Kyo cocked his head at the suspicious door with its guard, then sighed and nodded. “…Of course I do. Lead on, then.”

Kisaki winced at the honest faith in his friend’s voice. Steeling himself, he led his roommate up to the bulky man in the corner. The guard glanced down at the pair coldly before opening the door and beckoning them through. They walked into the dimly-lit hallway and as the door closed behind them, Kyo could only wonder why his roommate looked like he was heading towards a funeral.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a work of pure fiction. I do not personally know any of the members of Dir en grey, Kisaki, or X Japan, and do not profit from this work.


	2. Chapter 2

The room Kisaki lead his roommate into was pleasant enough at first glance – quiet, warmly lit, and smelling only faintly of cigarette smoke and quality liquor – but Kyo was somehow more uncomfortable to be there than he had been in the club. Men in black suits stood on either side of the doorway from the hall, just as bulky and silently intimidating as the man guarding the other door had been. In a large, semicircular booth in the center of the room, four men smoked and nursed alcoholic beverages. Their conversation had cut off abruptly when Kisaki and Kyo walked into the room, and were regarding the newcomers with open stares. Kisaki kept his eyes on the floor, fists clenched nervously at his sides, as his roommate returned the stares with his own scrutinizing gaze.

The two men on the left end of the booth were possessed of the same graceful androgyny as Kisaki, and one of them was just as tall. The shorter was particularly feminine, though perhaps unintentionally so, with auburn hair pulled into a loose ponytail and wearing a sleeveless white shirt with a high collar and ruffles down the front over tailored grey slacks. He had a laptop in front of him, and was the only one at the table not smoking. The taller had royal blue bangs delicately framing his face in front of a spray of black and blue dreadlocks, and wore leather pants under a black and white striped tank top. His full lips curved into a sultry smile as he took a drag on his cigarette and ran his eyes openly, brazenly, over the two men in the doorway. Next to him was another man Kisaki’s height with red and black hair pulled up into a stylishly messy faux-hawk, wearing tight jeans and a fitted jacket. He had exotic eyes – sharp, like a cat’s, and wickedly intelligent – that narrowed with interest over a half-full beer glass.

They were all staring, but it was the man on the far right that set Kyo on edge. He was shorter than the two in the middle, with pitch black hair hanging loose to just above his shoulders, and wore a pristine white dress shirt and a red tie under a black vest that matched his pressed wool slacks. He’d be the least remarkable of the four, if not for the striking features of his angular face. His eyes were hawkish – intense and predatory, set over high cheekbones and a slightly-hooked nose – and his gaze weighed heaviest on the two men that had interrupted his meeting. The blonde wasn’t sure how he’d come to the conclusion that this man was in charge of the gathering, but he was almost certain that it was the case. Everything about him, from his expression to his posture to his perfectly tailored clothing, simply screamed authority and confidence. The smirk that spread slowly across his thin lips was entirely cold, and Kyo found himself pressing closer to Kisaki’s side uneasily.

“Ah, if it isn’t our dear friend Mr. Matsuura,” the hawk-eyed man drawled. “You made it. We were starting to get worried about you.”

The tall redhead’s sharp eyes were bright with mischief as a wicked grin revealed perfect, white teeth. “Terribly worried.”

“We thought maybe you were lost, and we were going to have to come find you,” the dreadlocked man added with a sweet smile.

“But here you are. And this is the gentleman you mentioned? The dancer?”

“Yes,” Kisaki answered reluctantly.

The leader’s sharp gaze moved from Kisaki to Kyo. “Mr. Matsuura was telling us about you earlier. I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name, though.”

Kyo offered a bow, tentative but polite. Kisaki’s friends were unsettling – why did they keep addressing Kisaki so formally? – but friends nonetheless. He would be civil. “It’s Kyo. Kyo Nishimura.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Nishimura. My name is Kaoru Niikura, and these are my friends Die Andou,” he indicated the redhead, “Toshiya Hara,” the dreadlocked man, “and Shinya Terachi.” the auburn-haired femme. “Now, pleasantries aside, exactly what have you brought for me, Mr. Matsuura?”

Kisaki dug a blank CD in a flimsy jewel case out of his bag, moving forward somewhat grudgingly to set it on the table. Kyo tilted his head curiously at his roommate. Kaoru looked to the auburn-haired man – Shinya – and gestured lazily at the disc. The slender man plucked it up with long, delicate fingers and popped open the case, sliding the CD smoothly into his laptop. The little machine whirred softly to life as its owner turned the screen to face Kaoru.

Kaoru watched the laptop with obvious interest. Kyo couldn’t see it from where he stood, but he recognized the poorly-recorded music and background chatter coming from the speakers immediately. It was a video of him, wearing a kimono-like vinyl and lace robe with a cinched waist, hair teased into wild spikes, face painted exotically, dancing on a raised platform above a bustling crowd. Kisaki had brought a digital camcorder to Kyo’s work one night several months back, and filmed the blonde’s show on a whim. Kyo was actually somewhat fond of that video – his favorite DJ had been working that night, and he had honestly enjoyed the music, so his performance had been particularly enthusiastic – but it had no place here, among people meeting him for the first time. He frowned confusedly at Kisaki.

“Saki, why did you bring that?”

Kisaki stood with his head bowed so his hair obscured his face, one hand coming up to rest over his mouth and the other wrapped anxiously around his chest. Kyo began to worry in earnest.

“What’s wrong?” He whispered furtively to his younger friend, tugging on the taller man’s sleeve to try to get his attention. “These friends of yours…”

The dreadlocked man – Toshiya – tossed back a shot of something pale pink and set the empty glass down hard on the table as he stood. He slid gracefully past Shinya and walked up to Kyo, reaching out one hand towards the blonde’s face. Kisaki moved away from them quickly. Kyo bristled at the invasion of his personal space and tried to step backwards, but found himself backing into one of the hulking men in suits that had been standing by the door. Thick hands came up to grip the blonde’s shoulders, holding him in place.

“What the-?!”

“Shh…” Toshiya cooed with a dangerously sweet smile, reaching out again. “Just let me look, sweetheart.”

Kyo felt himself start to panic a little as the dreadlocked man grabbed his chin firmly, and used it to turn his face this way and that with a critical eye. “What are you doing?!”

“Hmm… you have nice skin…”

Kaoru took a languid sip of amber liquor, cocking his head to one side. “He’s to repay your debt, then?”

“Yes,” Kisaki whispered.

“‘Debt?’ What the hell ‘debt’ is he talking about?! What the fuck is happening, Kisaki?!” Kyo hissed anxiously, bucking against the men holding him. “Let me go!”

“I’m sorry, Kyo… I’m so sorry…” was all Kisaki could say.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” the blonde demanded as Toshiya’s hand left his chin and moved down to one of the clasps on his overalls. “GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME!”

“Such language,” Kaoru sighed, looking pointedly to Die.

“Shut him up,” the redhead commanded.

“Excuse me?!”

When one of the suited man’s hands left Kyo’s shoulder and Toshiya took a step back, the blonde moved desperately to get away from both of them.

Kisaki reached a hand out anxiously. “Please don’t-!”

The hand came back down before Kyo could take more than a single step, a heavy fist crashing against the side of his head and knocking him out cold. Kisaki clamped both hands over his mouth with a gasp as his friend collapsed to the floor in a heap of lifeless limbs. Toshiya knelt next to the unconscious figure and rolled it over so Kyo was lying on his back.

“Oh gods…” Kisaki whimpered.

“That’s better. Shinya, remind me again, how much does Mr. Matsuura owe us now?” Kaoru asked his younger friend, sliding the laptop back across the table.

Shinya began typing purposefully. “…Approximately ten million yen.”

“I see. And would Mr. Nishimura be enough to pay off that amount in our service?”

“Not sure, but I can find out. Age?”

There was a moment of tense silence before Kaoru shot Kisaki a warning look. “Answer the question, Mr. Matsuura. His age?”

“H-He’s twenty three!” Kisaki felt his stomach constrict painfully. He’d never considered that Kyo might not be enough to pay Kaoru off.

_‘This is really happening, isn’t it?’_

“Heh, really? He looks way younger,” Die observed casually.

“Any family?” Shinya asked.

“N-No, they’re… he hasn’t spoken to them in years.”

_‘I’m really giving him away…’_

“Outstanding debts or contractual obligations?”

“No…”

_‘He would never have been stupid enough to get himself into a mess like this!’_

“Education?”

“Um, h-he… he dropped out of high school.”

_‘He got me out of so many tight spots… but he’s not going to be there to help me, anymore… he’s not going to be there at all…’_

“STIs or other transferable ailments?”

Kisaki shuddered. “No! Why do you need-”

Kaoru cut him off. “You owe me a considerable sum, Mr. Matsuura. I need to be sure your friend here is a worthwhile investment of that money.”

“Physical disabilities of any kind?”

“He… he needs glasses to read… and his hearing’s a little messed up on the left side…”

_‘He’s not going to curl up with me on the couch to watch TV…’_

“Drug use?”

“He smokes, but that’s it.”

_‘He’s not going to kick the rock out of the doorway anymore…’_

“Skills?”

“W-what do you mean?”

Shinya looked up from his screen, his face perfectly neutral. “I mean, besides dancing, does he have any other useful expertise?”

“I don’t know. He… he can cook? And… he cleans…” Kisaki’s face tightened with guilt. “He sings.”

_‘I’m not going to wake up every morning to him singing in the shower…’_

“Toshiya?” Shinya called.

Kisaki clenched his fists until his nails dug little grooves into his palms.

_‘This is really happening… Gods, please forgive me…’_

Toshiya had unclasped Kyo’s overalls and pulled them down low around his hips to expose his torso. He was holding the blonde’s right arm up, delicately turning it over to examine the tattoos staining the slender limb. “He’s in good shape. No track marks here, but there’s a little bit of scarring on the chest and wrists. It looks self inflicted. Some ink, pretty high-quality. More piercings than he’s wearing jewelry in. He looks sweet enough when he’s not all pissed off. I’d say used, but still very usable.”

“Hmm… he’s not worth much,” Shinya informed Kaoru. “You could re-sell him as-is for maybe seven million. As an employee, he’d have the debt paid off in roughly ten years, taking cost of living into account.”

“Oh, really? What a bother… I suppose there’s nothing for it, though.” Kaoru thought for a minute, then nodded, waving a hand at Kisaki. “Very well, Mr. Matsuura, we’ll take him. You may consider your debt to me repaid.”

Kyo was beginning to stir a bit, face scrunching painfully. Kisaki eyed his roommate regretfully as he backed away towards the hall. “Th-thank you, Mister Niikura!”

Kaoru held up a hand abruptly, causing Kisaki to freeze in his tracks. “Actually, Mr. Matsuura, wait just a moment, won’t you? I would like to give you a gift.”

“A… A gift…?”

Kaoru’s dark eyes sparkled as a wicked smile tugged at his lips. “I can see that you care for this young man. Giving him up must be terribly difficult for you, and I would hate for you to feel like our exchange has been… less than fair. Toshiya, would you fetch something appropriate to offer as a ‘thank you’ to our friend?”

Toshiya smirked and dipped his head obligingly before disappearing down the hallway. Kaoru refocused his attention on his drink, his interest in Kisaki fading as their business was concluded. Die leaned over to murmur something in the man’s ear, earning a soft chuckle. Shinya packed away his computer and sipped daintily at his martini, eyeing Kisaki with just a touch of disdain. One of the men in suits hauled Kyo up by the arm to move him off to the side, the jostling motion shaking the blonde rapidly closer to consciousness. When Toshiya returned, he pressed a small plastic case into Kisaki’s hands with a wink. The effeminate redhead opened the box, confused, and blanched at its contents. One hundred pristine plastic disks, stacked neatly in four rows.

“I trust casino chips are an adequate token?” the dreadlocked man purred.

“Y-… yes, of… of course…” Kisaki breathed, snapping the box shut and turning back towards the hallway.

“See you at the tables, Kisaki!” Die called, amused.

“Nh… Saki?”

Kyo’s voice was a little slurred, weak and confused as it followed him away from that room. Kisaki hunched his shoulders a bit, shaking his head against the sound and increasing his pace.

_‘I didn’t have a choice! It was him or me!’_

“Kisaki what… where are you going? Hey, let me go! Kisaki, wait! Don’t leave me here!”

The voice was stronger now, aware and rising with panic. The redhead’s hand landed on the doorknob leading back into the club, shaking but resolute.

_‘I’m sorry, Kyo!’_

“KISAKI?!”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Toshiya hesitated halfway into the limousine, one foot in and one out, to watch as Kyo was loaded into the back of the glossy black van that their security guards traveled in. He couldn’t help but feel just a little sorry for the boy; he was clearly terrified, kicking and screaming hysterically at the three much-larger men shoving him into the vehicle with absolutely no success. With a shrug, he slid the rest of the way into the limo, settling onto the seat next to Shinya as the chauffer shut the door behind him. Shinya smiled just a bit and made room for the taller man, crossing his ankles neatly beneath his seat to take up as little space as possible. Die, sitting across from them, took up the extra room as he reclined with his long legs kicked out in front of himself.

“So, Kaoru. What do you think?” Toshiya asked as the car set into motion.

“Hm?” Kaoru mumbled absently from the back seat, hands folded loosely in his lap, head tipped back in thought.

“About the kid.”

Die’s sharp eyes flicked over to examine their boss as well. “I wasn’t expecting Matsuura to actually come back. I figured I was going to have to hunt him down.”

“No,” Kaoru sighed. “He has a hell of a gambling problem, but he’s not completely stupid. He knows better than to run from me. I haven’t quite decided what to do with ‘the kid’ yet, Toshiya, what are your thoughts?”

Toshiya was in charge of the entertainment sector of their little ‘family business,’ from gambling parlors to drug distribution to brothels; Kyo would undoubtedly be his responsibility. Die dealt only with matters of security, and their newest acquisition was too small and slight of frame for any kind of guard work, his hearing disability precluding any possibilities of training him in more nuanced arts like spying or assassination. Shinya handled the administrative aspects of the organization and had no use for a high-school dropout; the few men and women he had working directly beneath him were incredibly well-educated, and absolutely had to be to do their jobs.

Toshiya pursed his lips thoughtfully. “He’s attractive enough, and he can certainly dance. If he always moves the way he did in that video, I’m sure I could find a place for him entertaining in one of the tamer clubs.”

“If you can get him to do it,” Die observed wryly.

Toshiya sighed, tugging at one of his dreads. “That’s the kicker, isn’t it? He seems a little unruly; I get the feeling it would take kind of a while to convince him to perform willingly for us. We’d need to have him tested, but so long as he’s clean, I guess I could always just put him to work in a brothel if he won’t cooperate. Seems like such a waste, though.”

“It does…” Die aggreed, reaching one leg out to nudge at Shinya’s foot. “It might take more time, but it seems like in the long run, if you can get him to dance, he’d be worth more on the stage.”

Shinya frowned and tried to move his feet further under his seat. “You could always take the best of both worlds. Have him dance, then auction him off at the end of the night for a ‘solo performance’ for the highest bidder. People are always willing to pay more if they think they’re getting something special.”

“That would probably work. Shoot, I’d pay for him, after seeing that thing he did with his hips!” Toshiya chuckled, trying to mimic the writhing, twisting motion he’d seen on the video.

“Or you could just sell him,” the auburn-haired man continued, leaning to one side to avoid his taller friend’s flailing limbs. “He’s not really worth what you paid for him, though – Die! You have more than enough room, quit kicking me.”

“Don’t be a baby, Shin-Baby.”

Kaoru stared at the ceiling of the limousine for a long time, tuning out the playful banter starting up between his three subordinates. He trusted his friends and their expertise implicitly, but they were young yet, and prone to fits of immaturity. He considered the merits of their various proposals, as well as some of the other options that were open to him. He thought about the small amount of information Kisaki had given them, and what little he’d seen so far of the blonde’s personality. But mostly, he found himself thinking about the video of the smaller man.

The image of that lean, compact body wrapped in a lace-and-vinyl kimono – such a delicious blend of masculine and feminine, of traditional and modern, of modest and sinful – moving with such inherent sensuality, was pervasive in his mind. And somehow the fact that the blonde had been so completely dressed for the entirety of the performance made it all the more enticing. He wasn’t a stripper; his flesh wasn’t meant for common men to see or touch. Kaoru appreciated that, as he was not a common man.

“Well, I guess this evening wasn’t a total loss,” he eventually sighed as they pulled into a familiar, winding driveway. He looked out the window – over manicured lawns and flourishing gardens – at the sprawling mansion they called home, and smiled a bit. “I’ll admit, though… I’m halfway tempted to keep him for myself.”

All three of the other man in the limo looked taken aback, but it was Die who spoke first. “What, seriously?”

“Mmhmm.”

“That's a bit… unusual, Kaoru.” Shinya frowned worriedly. “You’d probably have to drug him, or spend months training him.”

“Kao, if you’re getting tired of Nozomi, we have plenty of other courtesans to choose from. Most of them would jump at the chance, too. Why take one that’s unwilling and untrained?” Toshiya demanded.

Kaoru shrugged as the vehicle slowed to a stop in front of their home. “That’s just it. All of the courtesans we keep here are too well trained; they cater to too many people’s different needs to meet my own quite as perfectly as I would like. I think I want someone less… experienced, someone I can mold to my own design from scratch. Our newest acquisition may prove suitable.”

“I don’t know… it seems like a hell of a project, even for you. I’m sure we can find something safer and less time-consuming to entertain you with.”

“Mm. Well, as I said, I’m tempted to do it, but he is potentially valuable elsewhere. I’ll have to think on it.”

One of the security guards they’d taken to the club was on hand to open the door for them, and they filed out of the vehicle one by one. As the limo drove off towards the garage, Die looked to the black van that had beaten them home, parked several meters away on the other end of the driveway. One of the other guards was just sliding the side door open, the third waiting to assist him with their captive if necessary, but it was suspiciously quiet. After the ruckus he’d put up earlier, Die had fully expected Kyo to come flying out of the van screaming like a damned wildcat the second the door was cracked. The still silence that issued forth instead was perturbing. Die’s curious gaze caught Kaoru’s attention, and he followed it as Toshiya and Shinya disappeared into the mansion without them.

“Did you guys have to knock him out again?” the redhead wondered.

The guard that had come to meet them looked back to the van. “No, sir. He went quiet on his own shortly after we left the club.”

There was a moment of tense silence as one of the guards by the van leaned in through the door, and then hell broke loose. A loud crash sounded from the back of the vehicle and the guard half inside jerked before going limp, his unconscious body sliding to the gravel below. The second guard moved quickly towards the door, but he was knocked down when Kyo came barreling out, both hands swinging what looked like a metallic grey briefcase into the man’s head. Another heavy crash, and both guards were down for the count. The blonde paused only long enough to catch sight of Kaoru, Die, and the third guard on the other end of the wide driveway before dropping the heavy case and bolting into the darkness of the gardens.

Die’s eyes narrowed. “After him. Now!”

“Yes, sir!”

The remaining guard took off, and Kaoru was entirely amused as he watched the man’s long legs eat up distance at a phenomenal speed, disappearing into the shadows as well. He walked over to the van casually, crouching next to the two unconscious guards and picking up their captive’s impromptu weapon. The silver case was a densely-packed first aid kit; usually kept tucked away in the back of the security vehicle for small emergencies. Behind him, he could hear Die speaking quietly into his cell phone, presumably summoning the mansion’s on-site doctor.

“Was this case out when they loaded him, do you think?” Kaoru wondered.

Die slid his thumb over the screen of his phone, ending the call, and shook his head emphatically. “Not a chance. It’s always kept under the sidewall panel when it’s not in use.”

“Hmm…"

The blonde was perhaps a bit cleverer than Kaoru had expected, then. Most would have been too spooked to do anything but pull on the door handle and bang on the windows. There was a scream in the distance that sounded like that of a wounded animal and Kaoru smirked to himself, standing. The guard had caught up with his quarry. He waited patiently for the man to return, for the most part ignoring the bustling movement spilling out onto his driveway as the doctor – gripping a black case and wearing his lab coat over pajama pants – rushed over to take care of the two fallen guards. Four more security enforcers and a nurse followed him, prompt and professional despite the ungodly hour. As they worked, they all looked just a touch unsettled by the wailing, almost inhuman shrieks drawing rapidly closer.

“Oh, Doctor?” Kaoru called abruptly, turning to look at the middle-aged man kneeling over one of the unresponsive guards.

“Yes, Mister Niikura?”

“Do you happen to have a tranquilizer in your bag?”

The doctor looked baffled. “Yes, sir, I believe I do.”

“Excellent. Please prepare it.”

“Right away, sir.”

The physician hurried to obey as the security enforcer reappeared, dragging a hysterically-thrashing Kyo, holding both of the smaller man’s arms clamped tightly behind his back. The guard had a bloody nose and what would probably be a black eye in the morning, but the blonde looked reasonably unharmed, and Kaoru was pleased. The guard knew better than to damage his property. Die moved forward to help the enforcer hold the younger man in place, wincing as a litany of incomprehensible profanity poured from the blonde at a startling volume. Kaoru looked to the doctor and gestured to the screaming, flailing captive. The older man obediently went over to Kyo, waiting for Die and the guard to get him safely restrained before sliding a thin syringe into the blonde’s forearm. Kyo shrieked, the horrible sound shaking the air as every muscle in his body jerked and strained in a frantic bid for freedom.

Then the doctor moved away, and it was a matter of moments before the small blonde’s struggles began to slow, and his voice began to fall into a desperate, fading slur. Die and the guard released their captive’s arms and Kyo managed to get barely two steps away from them before collapsing into the gravel, dead asleep. The doctor carefully lifted one thin wrist, digging two fingers in gently while staring at the watch on his other arm.

“Doctor, I need you to perform a physical and run blood work on him, if you would. The usual battery for new employees,” Kaoru ordered curtly.

“Yes, sir.”

Die made a face at his friend, tucking his hands into his pockets as they headed off towards the mansion. “Who knew something so small could be so _loud?_ I’m pretty sure I’m deaf in one ear now. You really want to keep that in your quarters?”

“More so now than I did before. He’s a spirited little thing, isn’t he?”

The redhead rolled his eyes. He should have known; Kaoru always did enjoy a good challenge. “'Spirited'… right. Should I have him sent up after the doctor’s done with him?”

Kaoru frowned thoughtfully. “…Yes. Also grab Toshiya before he goes to bed; have him call Nozomi sent back to the courtesan quarters and arrange for the necessary supplies for a new pet set up in my room, if you could.”

Die sighed, “Of course.”

“Oh, and Daisuke? What was that guard’s name?”

“The one with the busted face? That’s Tatsuaki.”

“Have a gift sent to him tomorrow. He did well.”

“Sure thing, Kao.”

Kaoru headed up a winding staircase towards his sleeping quarters, a faint smirk tugging at his lips.

_‘This should prove to be very entertaining.’_

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Kyo dreamt of snakes. A whole knot of them; twisting around in his belly, eating away at his innards until nothing was left before crawling up his esophagus to escape out of his mouth. He was awoken, rudely and abruptly, when his stomach lurched for real, and the imagined pressure in his throat became a physical strain. Burnt-gold eyes snapped open, pupils narrowed down to pinpricks. He dragged himself gracelessly out of the futon he’d been sleeping on, staggering toward the nearest doorway his hazy mind registered, thanking every god he could think of when the room on the other side turned out to be a bathroom. It was a short trip, but he nearly collapsed twice, and it was only sheer force of will that carried him all the way to the toilet. Falling to his knees, clutching the bowl in both hands, he retched violently.

 _‘Gods, what did I drink last night?!’_ he wondered miserably between waves of violent nausea. Nothing came up but thin, bitter bile, but still his stomach railed against him.

_‘I don’t even remember drinking!’_

_‘Kisaki and I went to that shady club… then what?!’_

Memory of the previous night refused to reestablish itself in Kyo’s aching head and once he’d gotten control of his stomach, he looked around himself in confusion. Just a sink and a toilet in a tiny room with blank, white walls. This wasn’t his bathroom. Had he gone home with some stranger in a fit of drunken poor judgment? Looking down, he was dismayed to find his clothes missing – even his jewelry – replaced by a thin white bathrobe held loosely shut with a narrow belt. Embroidered over the left breast was an insignia of a stylized black spider with an elegant red cross emblazoned across its abdomen like a black widow’s hourglass. He was completely nude but for someone else’s bathrobe! He cringed and pushed himself up off the ground, slapping the button to flush the toilet before shuffling miserably over to the sink to rinse his face and mouth.

_‘Oh gods, what the hell did I do?’_

_‘Did I actually **sleep** with some random stranger?!’ _

_‘Ugh… I met some of Kisaki’s creepy friends last night, didn’t I?’_

_‘Was it one of them?’_

He seemed to remember a tall, effeminate man with blue and black dreadlocks touching his face, but after that… nothing. Had he gone home with that man? Had he been on top? It was rare, but it happened, and he didn’t feel like he’d been taken recently. He tried to remember the man’s name, but nothing came to him. How awkward. Water dripped off of his eyelashes and the tip of his nose and he sighed, raising his face to look tiredly into the mirror above the sink. He frowned when he noticed something out of place in his reflection.

_‘What’s this?’_

_‘ **Fuck** … that’s it, I’m never drinking again.’ _

_‘Alcohol brings nothing but trouble…’_

Resting snugly against his throat was a choker necklace that he knew for a fact he hadn’t been wearing the night before. It was secured by a square silver clasp with the same black widow design as the one on the robe engraved on the front, the cross on the spider’s belly formed by a brilliant, precisely-cut scarlet gem. The band itself felt like leather, soft and supple, if a bit thick. When he felt along the inside surface of the band, he came across two shallow metal nubs placed on either side of the clasp. He couldn’t fathom why studs would be placed on the inside of a necklace, and he wondered at the spider-and-cross insignia, but on the whole he found he liked the look of it. It was an elegantly simple piece of jewelry, and felt well-made.

_‘This thing is really nice…’_

_‘Oh hell… I hope it wasn’t a gift from whoever I went home with.’_

_‘What do they expect in return if it was?’_

_‘Oh gods, please don’t let a drunken one-night-stand turn into something so much worse!’_

Thinking to find his clothes from the previous evening so that he could at least face his ‘host’ with some dignity, he padded back out into the space he’d woken up in to look around. He disturbed by what he found; a barren room with hardwood floors and pristine white walls, its only furnishings a clock mounted on the wall next to a closed door, and the bed he’d woken up in. He originally had thought it was a futon – and sure enough, it was a heavy cushion laid directly on the floor – but he shivered when he saw that it was no simple mat. It was oval-shaped, with a fleecy-soft cover and had soft, raised walls that came up to just under knee height. He vaguely remembered it being comfortable, but he couldn’t get around the fact that it looked like nothing so much as a giant dog bed. Fighting off a growing feeling of trepidation, he moved to the door and gripped the knob, finding it securely locked.

_‘I’m locked in… why am I locked in?!’_

_‘Maybe… maybe it’s just an accident!’_

_‘Y-yeah, it must be an accident.’_

_‘They don’t know the door is locked, they don’t know I’m stuck in here.’_

“HELLO- ah!” he cried out, startled by a soft beep and a mild electrical shock that sent him reeling back, shaken and confused. It didn’t hurt all that much, just a soft sting, but it sent his heart racing and his body quivering.

“What th- ah!” Another beep, and another, stronger shock. “What’s- AH!”

That one hurt, and this time he realized where both the sound and the electricity were coming from. He wrapped his hands around the necklace at his throat with a look of dawning horror. Someone had put a shock collar on him?! He clawed at the device hysterically, searching for a release for the silver clasp and finding none. He pulled at the leather band over and over, as hard as he could, until the top edge began to rub the soft skin of his neck raw, but the thing wouldn’t so much as budge.

_‘Oh shit, oh shit, it won’t come off! What the hell is happening?!’_

Panting and shaking, he tried the door again, yanking on the knob with all of his strength. It didn’t budge. Looking around the room again, he saw no other possible exits; no windows, no doors besides the locked one and the one to the toilet. He was trapped.

His face twisting into a panicked grimace, he banged both fists on the door and called out frantically, fighting past the first few, lower-level shocks issued by the collar. “Hey- Nn! HEY IS- Hnn! IS ANYBODY- Fuck! SOMEBODY HEL- AGH!”

The pain of the last shock knocked him to his knees and he bit his lip until it bled, fighting to steady his rattled nerves and racing heart. Though his mind was screaming with hysteria, his body was quickly cowed into silence by the punishments issued by the collar and it was so hard to make himself push his voice past the threat of further reprimand. By the clock on the wall, it was eight-fifteen in the morning when he set himself to banging and scratching wildly at the door, beating it with his bare fists and feet until both were tender and raw. Twice, he tried to call for help again, but each time he was so swiftly and harshly rebuked by the device at his throat that he couldn’t force himself to keep up the effort.

_‘Why is no one answering?!’_

_‘Can’t anyone hear me?!’_

_‘Am I… am I all alone?’_

By noon, he had given up on the door and was searching his room; every corner, every millimeter of the walls, every floorboard for some other means of escape. He found a long ventilation grate at the top of one wall, but it was too high up for him to reach, and barely more than a few centimeters tall. There would be no getting out through there, and everything else was impeccably sealed. He then turned his attention back to the collar, feeling over and over again for a clasp, pulling at the thing with all of his strength until his neck bled where the leather had worn through his skin. No luck there either.

_‘It’s not coming off!’_

_‘They put a collar on me!’_

_‘I have to get it off…’_

_‘A goddamn **bark collar** **!** ’_

By four in the afternoon, he had given up his struggles. Despondent, he sat on the disturbing bed and folded himself against the back wall, hugging his legs to his chest and waiting for something to happen. He was scared. He was lonely. He was hungry. Claustrophobia was beginning to strain his already-frayed nerves, and fear was eating away at him like the most pervasive venom. The need for a cigarette was becoming an increasingly-persistent discomfort as well; his head ached and his throat itched for want of hot, soothing smoke.

_‘Why is this happening?’_

_‘When did I get here?’_

_‘ **Where** is here?’_

_‘Oh no… Is Kisaki okay?’_

_‘What if they got him too?!’_

When the clock read just after ten in the evening, he noticed the white light set into the room’s ceiling was beginning to dim, and he watched it anxiously. By ten-thirty, it had waned to an almost-imperceptible dark orange glow, and settled there. It was the only change he’d seen in the room besides the minutes ticking by on the clock, and for a moment, he hoped that it meant something – anything – was going to happen. Still silence dragged on, and he bit his lip dejectedly.

_‘…No one’s coming for me?’_

_‘Are they just going to leave me here to rot?’_

_‘Why did they put me here in the first place?!’_

_‘I don’t understand…’_

He tried his best to sleep, curled in a miserable ball on the disconcerting bed, hoping that maybe he’d wake up and this would all be a nightmare. But he woke frequently, and every time, his situation remained unchanged. Aches and crushing anxiety kept him up when he wasn’t shocking himself awake every time he groaned or cried out against fitful dreams. By one in the morning, the physical and emotional strains culminated in a hysterical fit of hyperventilation, thin tears and sweat sliding down his cheeks as he gasped desperately for air. It took nearly an hour before he could catch his breath again.

_‘I want to go home…’_

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

When the clock read half past six in the morning, the light on the ceiling had brightened back to its full-strength white, and Kyo watched it cagily. He could only wonder, what would the second day of his imprisonment bring? More solitude? More silence? More sickness brought on by hunger and nicotine withdrawals? At seven, he heard a faint squeaking, followed by the undeniable sound of water running through pipes nearby. His heart constricting a bit at the noise, he crawled to the side of the room opposite his little bathroom and pressed his ear to the wall.

_‘I’m not alone…?’_

It was quiet – so quiet, he wasn’t even sure it wasn’t just his imagination – but he was almost certain he could hear the faint strains of music running under the sounds of what he could only assume was a shower. When the running water turned off half an hour later, he was sure he heard – and maybe felt – the gentle thrum of bass passing through the thick wall. He closed his eyes, feeling his jittery heartbeat gradually slow to match the faint _~thump-thump-thump~_ of the barely-audible music until eight o’clock, when it disappeared. Biting his lip, he pressed closer to the wall, both hands splayed against it, and strained to catch any further signs of life. For a long time, none were forthcoming.

A little before nine, a soft click from the door caught Kyo’s attention, and he startled where he knelt. His head snapped around to face the far end of the room and he saw a man walking into the room with sharp, predatory eyes that he thought, distantly, that he should recognize from somewhere. The man closed the door behind him and crossed the room with calm, confident strides. Kyo jerked to his feet as the man came to a stop just in front of him, looking down at him with something almost like curiosity.

Kyo opened his mouth to speak, but the man cut him off with one raised hand, his voice curt. “Don’t you dare start screaming again, or I’ll leave you to rot alone in here for another day, do you understand me? You put up quite a fuss yesterday, and I have very little tolerance for noisiness. If you can be civil, I’ll turn your collar off and answer your questions before I go to work. I know you must have quite a few.”

The blonde’s mouth shut with an audible click, eyes wide with surprise. The thought of spending another day in the crushing silence of the barren cell – not knowing where he was being kept or why – was harrowing. Swallowing, he nodded slowly.

“Very good.” The man looked pleased, pulling out a flat, black device that looked very much like a cell phone, tapping and sliding his fingers across the screen. The device beeped twice softly and Kyo’s choker beeped twice in response, and the blonde understood with a sickening twist to his stomach that he was seeing the remote control to his collar. “You may speak.”

Kyo opened his mouth cautiously, still wary of further punishment by the damnable necklace. “Who…” No shock, thankfully. He pressed on, struggling to keep his voice level when fear and anger threatened to make it shake. “Who are you? What the hell is going on?!”

“My name is Kaoru Niikura. You may recall, we met Saturday night when you came to my club, Zakuro? You’re here because your friend Mr. Matsuura borrowed a substantial amount of money from my organization, and when we called on him to collect, he couldn’t pay us back.”

“Kisaki…?” Brief flashes of memory surfaced hazily in Kyo’s mind, and he struggled to assemble them into a coherent picture. The back room of a seedy club… the dreadlocked man looking him over like a piece of meat at the market… being thrown into the back of a van…

Kisaki had been there, sure, but… he was involved in this?

“That’s right. Since the New Year, he was given three warnings that we wanted our money, the last of which I issued yesterday afternoon. He didn’t have the cash or the material assets to cover it, so he gave us the only other thing he had. You.”

“What do you mean, he gave you _me?!_ _I’m_ supposed to pay you back?!” Kyo demanded angrily, eyes narrow as he gestured vehemently to himself. “I’m a dancer in a seedy little gay bar; I don’t have any fucking money! And even if I did, I shouldn’t have to pay you anything, because it isn’t my debt to pay! I’ve never gambled or borrowed money in my life – I don’t owe anybody anything!”

Kaoru nodded. “You’re quite right; it’s not your debt, and we don’t expect you to pay it. You yourself are the payment. You have become property of my organization.”

Kyo went abruptly still, eyes wide with horror. “Pro-… property?” He felt like he’d been punched in the stomach.

“Yes. Typically, someone in your situation would be placed under the command of one of my subordinates as either entertainment, security, or administrative personnel. They would train you further in the skills of that particular trade, and place you in a position that most benefits the family until the debt is paid off. In your case, you would end up working under Toshiya as entertainment personnel, likely dancing. Since you have no other profitable skills as far as we know, if you proved uncooperative in that regard, he would have to place you in a brothel.”

The blonde bristled, baring his teeth in a snarl. “A brothel?! I’m not a fucking _prostitute!_ What makes you think I would cooperate for that?!”

Kaoru shrugged a little, entirely unfazed. “You wouldn’t necessarily need to. To put on a good show dancing, you must be willing. To entertain sexually… well, there are those who don’t want a willing partner, and are prepared to pay a little extra to fulfill their fantasies. You could be drugged into compliance, tied up, or we could just allow the client to beat you into submission. So long as you weren’t killed or permanently damaged to the point of being unusable, it would be a plenty lucrative option.”

Kyo reeled back away from the man, paling. “You… you’re serious.”

Kaoru smirked. “Oh yes.”

Kyo swallowed thickly. He didn’t want to believe this man could actually do any of those things to him, but… he was trapped in this place, wasn’t he? Already he’d been kidnapped, drugged, and stripped; what was there stopping this man from raping him, or allowing others in to do so? Shaking his head against a creeping feeling of despair, he squared his shoulders and hissed viciously, “I won’t do it. I’m not a stripper and I’m not a prostitute and _you_ can’t force me to be either!”

“As I said, that’s what we would typically do with you and, regardless of what you think I can or cannot do, it remains an option. But, assuming you don’t prove to be completely unmanageable, you won’t need to worry about making that choice. I’ve decided to keep you for myself.”

Kyo stared at the older man with stunned incredulity. “…What?”

Kaoru gestured at the cell. “These rooms you’re in are part of my personal quarters, and you will be staying here for the foreseeable future as my companion. My _pet_. From here on out, unless I tell you otherwise, you will serve and obey only me, in any capacity that I may require of you.”

“…” Kyo gaped as the implications of what he’d just been told sank in, then growled, “The hell I will! I won’t do a damn thing for you, you can’t keep me here!”

Kaoru laughed. “I’m Kaoru Niikura, you’d be surprised what all I can do. Try to understand; I’m not exaggerating in the least when I say that you are mine now, to do with whatever I may please. The sooner you come to terms with that, the easier this life will be for you. You may even come to enjoy our arrangement if you behave yourself.”

Kaoru’s sharp gaze ran a slow, leisurely course down the length of his new pet’s body as he spoke. He had seen Kyo nude already, the night before last when the doctor delivered his pet after conducting a physical, before he had wrapped the younger man in a bathrobe to keep him warm. The compact form – all lean muscle wrapped in smooth, ink-stained skin – had been curled so sweetly in the round bed, his face so soft in sleep; Kaoru had been unable to take his eyes off the blonde for a long time. Ignoring him for an entire day had been almost unbearable, but he knew it was necessary to temper his captive’s fiery will a bit.

Somehow, though, the sight of the younger man in the robe now was more exciting than his bare body had been. Perhaps because it forced Kaoru to imagine the gorgeous body that lay underneath, to wonder at hidden mysteries awaiting his exploration? Or was it because now those dark gold eyes were open and smoldering with such rebellious obstinacy, simply begging to be bent to their new master’s will? Maybe it was the fact that the robe and the collar both had Kaoru’s own crest emblazoned across them, and wearing them blatantly marked the younger man as his property – a thrill to his possessive nature.

“Stop looking at me like that!” Kyo hissed, eyes narrow as he crossed his arms self-consciously over his chest.

Kaoru chuckled and moved forward, advancing on his young captive, “You just don’t get it…”

Kyo tensed and straightened, back pressed tight against the wall as the taller man came to a stop directly in front of him, so close that he had to crane his neck to continue to face him. The older man’s hands came up toward his face and Kyo snarled, reaching up to shove the invading limbs away. He cried out, startled, as Kaoru moved with a sudden burst of speed, catching one of his wrists and spinning it around his back, pushing him face-first into the wall. Straining and jerking at the crushing grip, with absolutely no effect, Kyo felt his tenuous courage begin to flag.

“ _Fuck!_ L-Let me go!” he panted against the wall.

Kaoru’s lips brushed over the blonde’s ear as he whispered, “You’re in no position to be making demands. I can look at you whenever I want, however I want.” His free hand hitched up the back of the thin robe and brushed pointedly over the curve of the younger man’s bare ass. “I can _touch_ you whenever I want, however I want. You are _mine_ , don’t you understand?”

Truthfully, he had no intention of entirely forcing himself on his new companion. He was no sadist, after all; he would derive no pleasure from overpowering or abusing this pretty little creature. And besides, doing so would greatly hinder any chance of the smaller man ever learning to accept his new station in life. He wanted Kyo’s obedience, not his misery. But Kyo didn’t necessarily need to know any of that, and Kaoru had absolutely no moral compunctions about leading the blonde to believe whatever he needed to, so long as it meant the younger man would behave himself.

Kyo bucked wildly against his hold, startled by the overly-intimate contact, his voice cracking with burgeoning panic. “N-NO! Let go of me, damn it!”

“Settle down, my pet,” Kaoru murmured against his ear, nipping at the outer curve of the soft shell.

Kyo seethed as his free hand clawed against the wall, desperate for freedom. “I am _not_ your-”

“You are whatever I want you to be, whenever I want you to be it. Your life is defined solely by what you are to me, now,” Kaoru asserted, crushing the blonde mercilessly into the wall. “You are _my_ prize, _my_ consort, _my_ courtesan, _my_ pet, _my_ plaything. You have no life, no worth beyond what you can do for _me_.”

Kyo squeezed his eyes shut with a hopeless whine, his heart pounding in his throat as his captor’s declaration sank in. He wasn’t strong enough to push Kaoru off of him; probably not even on a good day, but particularly not after a full day spent in the throes of panic with no food or rest. He was completely at the man’s mercy, and it was a sickening realization. His struggles slowed, the futility of his efforts settling like a heavy stone in his belly.

“Good boy,” Kaoru praised, his grip loosening just enough for the blonde to breathe a little easier. “In this place, nothing is free, whether it’s something you want or not. You must earn every privilege, every comfort, every kindness you receive here, but you must also earn every punishment. If you choose to misbehave, your life will be an unmitigated hell, but you will have brought every last bit of misery onto yourself by your own actions. If you cooperate, you will find that you will want for nothing. You will be given only the best food, clothing, jewelry, amusements; whatever your little heart desires. All you have to do is _obey_. Now, do you want me to let go of you?”

Kyo nodded shakily. “Y-Yes…”

Kaoru immediately crushed him into the wall again, the hand on his ass straying down to grope between his legs. “‘Yes’? Just ‘yes’?”

Kyo cried out and jerked up to his toes, trying to escape the hand grasping his privates so invasively. “NH! Yes, please! Please let me go, _please!”_

“Ah, see? That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?”

Kyo was released abruptly and lost his footing without the grip on his arm to support him, falling to his knees on the hard floor with a wince. He stayed where he landed, shaking hands coming forward to clutch the thin robe shut over his chest as the loose garment slumped off of one hunched shoulder. Swallowing thickly and squeezing his eyes shut, he struggled to regain control of his breath, to steady his pounding heart.

Kaoru couldn’t help the slow, indulgent smirk that spread across his lips. His little pet looked so sweet kneeling that way; the soft golden spray of hair around a flushed face, full lips parted in a whimpering pant, long-fingered hands trembling as they held the robe closed so shyly, one round shoulder peeking out like the most innocent tease. Such a delicious temptation. He ran his fingertips over that little bit of exposed flesh, but his pet jerked away from him with a hiss before he could enjoy the touch.

With a thoughtful hum, Kaoru turned away and checked his watch. “Well, as much as I would love to stay and spend some more time with you, I’m afraid I’m a bit late for work. You think about what I’ve said, and we’ll speak further tonight.”

Kyo stayed resolutely silent, staring at his lap as the older man left the room, the door locking behind him with a resounding click. Only when he was certain he was alone did he give up the struggle to contain the miserable sobs of terrified grief trying so hard to creep out of him. The depth of his emotional turmoil was physically sickening, and he could hardly breathe for the intensity of it all. He was caged and collared like an animal, he’d been stripped while he slept and molested by force, he was starving, and – worst of all – _Kisaki_ had been the one to send him to this horrible place. His roommate, his best friend, the one person he thought he could always trust, had sold him into slavery. It was all too much for him to handle with any kind of grace; he clenched his fists into the folds of his robe and wept uncontrollably.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

For a long time after Kaoru left, Kyo could do little more than wallow in his own horror. He knelt on the hard floor, letting angry, terrified tears drain from his eyes until he had no more left to shed. When it became apparent that that wouldn’t be enough, he gritted his teeth and indulged himself in a well-established addiction for catharsis; slipping one hand into his robe and clawing at himself with increasing fervor as if he could dig his own heart out. As if digging deep enough would spare him the ache of betrayal and panic and fear festering in his core. He didn’t stop until he felt blood tricking down his chest and over his belly, hissing at the sharp throbbing of his torn flesh even as he reveled in the sensation. The physical pain served as an emotional cautery, allowing anger to burn away everything else.

_-“You have no life, no worth beyond what you can do for **me**.”-_

He shook his head against the memories, growling. The motion only served to aggravate the sickness imparted by ever-increasing withdrawal symptoms. His body shook incessantly, his head ached and swam in a pervasive fog, he felt cold but he was coated in a fine layer of sweat, and his stomach was beginning to cramp up (though hunger played a part in that as well). Eventually, he forced himself to surface from his brooding, glancing bitterly at the clock on the wall – quarter past eleven in the morning – before dragging himself into the bathroom. He hunched over the sink, drinking as much water as he could hold in an attempt to sooth the itch in his throat and the emptiness in his belly, but it did little good. His eyes rose slowly to stare at his own harrowed reflection in the mirror.

_-“You are **my** prize, **my** consort, **my** courtesan, **my** pet, **my** plaything.”-_

 “Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!” he screamed.

Panting, he fisted his hands in his hair and pulled, shaking his head against the pervasive sound of his captor’s voice. He couldn’t stand the sight of himself, of that damnable collar resting so irrefutably at his throat, labeling him as little more than an animal. With an ear-splitting shriek, he lashed out, striking the pitilessly honest glass over and over until it fell in ragged shards to the floor and sink below, stained with blood from his split knuckles. He screamed and screamed and punched and punched until there was nothing left of the looking glass but a few narrow edges stuck in the dented frame and wet streaks of scarlet. Worn, he slumped against the wall, trembling for a long time before his head rose, a wild glint in his eyes as he stared down at the glossy silver shards.

_-“Pet.”-_

_-“My pet.”-_

_-“ **My pet.** ”-_

“A pet… his pet… just a fucking animal…”

Using the sleeve of the robe as protection, one hand closed around a long shard of shattered mirror and clutched it lovingly as he moved back into the main room of his cell, his feral gaze landing on the dog bed. With jerky, violent movements, the blonde began to stab the glass into the damning mat, tearing through the thick cover over and over to let the soft cushioning inside spill out. A hysterical little laugh bubbled out of him. He could be an animal, oh yes. He would show his captor just what kind of animal he was. The laughter turned into a short-lived scream as he stabbed and ripped and slashed frantically at the horrifying symbol of what he was being threatened with.

_-“You are **mine** now, to do with whatever I may please. The sooner you come to terms with that, the easier this life will be for you.”-_

The edges of his makeshift blade tore deep into his palm and fingers through the fabric of his robe, but he reveled in the pain, letting it fuel his anger as he reduced the bed to an unrecognizable pile of fabric scraps and stuffing balls stained with streaks of blood. He snarled viciously as he flung the mess away from himself, letting it scatter across the room. The glass shard fell to the ground with a soft _~tink~_ against the hardwood as he turned away, his hand leaving bloody streaks on the wall when he braced himself against it to stand. He stared at it in wonder – finally, some color in this empty white cell! – and slid his hand up a bit higher, spreading the stain-

“Just what the _fuck_ do you think you’re doing?”

Kyo froze, eyes going wide. That voice – ice cold – was not a memory. He turned his head slowly to look over one shoulder, and found Kaoru standing in the doorway. His captor’s arms were crossed over his chest, and the expression on his face was terrifying; sharp eyes narrowed, thin mouth twisted into a narrow line, glaring down his nose at the blonde. The man looked absolutely livid. Caught in that piercing gaze, Kyo’s anger sputtered just a bit under the growing spread of his fear. He swallowed and forced himself to rekindle that waning flame, eyes narrowing defiantly.

“I leave you alone for a couple of hours and you completely destroy your room?” Kaoru demanded, pulling his cell phone out with a scowl and sending out a short text message before tucking the device back into his jacket pocket. “I had to leave a meeting to come deal with this.”

Kyo bristled at the chastising tone. “FUCK you! I never wanted to be here in the first place!”

“Lower your voice. And tell me, did your temper tantrum benefit you at all? What have you accomplished by cutting yourself up and ruining your bed? I can’t continue to give you nice things if you’re just going to wreck them,” Kaoru informed the blonde with a cold glare, moving forward to stand in front of him, cornering him against the wall.

Kyo exploded at the condescending presumption with which his captor spoke to him, his voice raising into a frenzied scream that echoed horribly in the tiny room. “I DON’T WANT ANYTHING FROM YOU! I don’t want that fucking dog bed, and I don’t want this FUCKING COLLAR, I JUST WANT TO FUCKING GO HOME YOU SON OF A BITCH!”

“I won’t ask you again to lower your voice. You have nowhere else to go; this is your home now.”

“THE HELL IT IS! I don’t give a shit what you think I owe you, I’m not your goddamn PET and I’m not staying here! I don’t care if I have to live in a damn cardboard box on the street! Fuck Kisaki, fuck his debts, and FUCK YOU!” Kyo snapped, pushing Kaoru away from himself with both bloodied hands.

His captor hardly budged a single step back for all of the effort his fatigued body had put into the attempt. As his face came back up to look at Kaoru again, he could only catch a glimpse of the man’s arm coming down at him before something hard and heavy crashed against the side of his face, knocking him back against the wall. Crying out as pain lanced through his head from the blow against his cheekbone, Kyo put one hand over the wound and looked up again to snarl at his captor. Seeing what the man had hit him with, the blonde’s eyes went wide and the blood drained out of his face, his anger suddenly and completely smothered by terror.

“Oh… gods…”

A gun. It was a goddamned gun; Kaoru had struck him across the face with the butt of a _pistol_ , and as Kyo stared down the barrel of the weapon, his mind shut down in absolute, unadulterated horror. He could count on one finger the number of times he’d seen a gun in real life, and that was including this one. And it was pointed directly at him, in the hand of a man possessed of the coldest, cruelest eyes he’d ever seen; a man who was undeniably comfortable and familiar with the deadly implement. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe for the panic gripping him.

_‘No…’_

_‘I don’t want to die…’_

_‘I don’t want to **die!** ’_

“Yes, that’s much better. Now, I think you owe me an apology,” Kaoru remarked icily. “On your knees.”

It took the words a moment to register. When they did, Kyo sank to the floor slowly, his attention never wavering from the weapon trained between his eyes, voice shaking as he whispered, “I-I… I’m s-… s-sorry… I’m sorry… p-please…”

Kaoru smirked. “That’s not quite the kind of lip service I’m asking for when I order you to your knees, pet.”

“W-What?” Kyo stuttered breathlessly, hands clenched nervously in the folds of his robe, staining the delicate fabric with the blood still seeping from his knuckles and palm. “P-please, I’m very sorry, I-I-”

“I’m sorry, was I unclear?” Kaoru wondered as he moved forward, his hand shifting decisively to flick off the safety of the gun and cock back the hammer as he caressed the cold steel weapon almost lovingly against Kyo’s face. “The quality and duration of your life at any given moment is completely dependent on my mood. I’m pissed off right now, so I suggest you open up that lovely mouth and _suck me off_ before I decide you’re not worth the effort of keeping alive.”

“What?!” Kyo reeled back, appalled. “N-No! Please, I- _AH!”_

The blonde screamed as the gun shifted to one side and fired into the wall with a piercing sound, painful even in his half-deaf left ear. Heat and plaster dust washed over the left side of his face, easily crossing the bare centimeters between him and the bullet’s path. As the gun came back to train on him – another round in the chamber, ready to punch a hole through his skull – he let out a terrified, helpless little sound. He’d defied his captor, and this was his punishment; a choice between degradation and death. And he couldn’t die, not this way, not in this place. That left only one option.

Trembling, his stomach quivering with shame and shattered nerves, he reached out to clumsily undo the button and fly of Kaoru’s neatly pressed slacks. The older man was unbelievably smug, his free hand coming down to grip blond hair as his pet pulled his slowly-hardening arousal out of his pants and slowly, miserably, took the thick flesh into his mouth. Kyo shut his eyes against the extremity of the situation and began to work his lips and tongue around the heated shaft, hands braced against his captor’s clothed hips.

Kaoru’s eyelids lowered halfway, sheer bliss trying to force his eyes back into his skull even as he fought to continue watching his little pet. The soft, wet heat sliding over his cock was lovely, but the sight of the blonde was absolutely decadent. He’d always been a very aesthetic person, holding a deep appreciation for physical beauty and putting heavy value on how things looked, and Kyo was a truly stunning creature. On his knees, full lips stretched wide to fit all of Kaoru’s erection, thick black eyelashes glistening with unshed tears fanned against round cheeks – though one was beginning to bruise and bleed sluggishly from the blow he’d dealt earlier – a faint flush staining that sweet, soft face. That sight, almost more than the feeling of the warm mouth so timidly sucking and licking at his arousal, brought a self-indulgent moan past Kaoru’s lips. He tightened his grip on the younger man’s fine, blond hair and allowed his eyes to drift shut in satisfaction.

“Mister Niikura? You called for me?”

Kyo’s eyes snapped open, shocked, as the light female voice met his ears. Standing in the open doorway, wearing a maid’s uniform and pushing a small cart of cleaning supplies, was a young woman, bent at the waist in a low bow that she held flawlessly, awaiting Kaoru’s response. He was on his knees, with a dick in his mouth and a gun to his head, and now there was an audience?! It was too much. He balked, trying to pull away from Kaoru, to free his mouth and run to the bathroom to hide from this fresh source of searing shame, but he found himself pinned to the spot. The hand tangled in his hair held him fast against his captor’s groin, the still-warm steel barrel on the other side pressing closer to his skull in warning. Whimpering, Kyo squeezed his eyes shut again and ceased his struggles, wishing he could disappear from this place and its ever-multiplying humiliations.

“Yes, Mika. Please get this mess cleaned up for me,” Kaoru ordered with startling self-control; his voice only a touch breathy for the intensity of his arousal.

“Right away, Mister Niikura.”

Kyo trembled, mortified as the girl went to work cleaning up the mess he’d made, hardly more than a meter away from where he knelt. He couldn’t make himself open his eyes to see if she was looking at him, but he could hear her close by and held himself as still as possible, even holding his breath, in the desperate hope that he could go unnoticed. She couldn’t see him like this! No one could be allowed to see him like this!

Kaoru’s low voice sounded overhead, chilling the blonde to the core. “I don’t recall telling you to stop, my pet.”

 _‘Oh gods! Just… Just finish him off,’_ Kyo thought desperately, redoubling his efforts on his captor’s straining erection. _‘Just finish him off and this will end!’_

Kaoru groaned appreciatively overhead and Kyo blocked the hateful sound out, just as he blocked out the soft rustling and faint humming coming from his side where the maid was cleaning. He was dizzy, but he focused all of his attention on pleasuring his captor, in the hope that bringing the man swiftly to orgasm would bring him at least a temporary respite. When he felt a wave of tension ride through the older man as he tongued the slit in the cockhead, he lingered there, lathing attention on the more sensitive area. When the hips he braced his hands against jerked as his throat constricted reflexively, he swallowed again and again around the flesh in his mouth, working his throat against the invading organ. He learned what most affected Kaoru and adjusted his ministrations accordingly simply for the sake of finishing him off as quickly as possible.

His actions were wringing more of those damned hedonistic noises from his captor’s shameless throat and, with the man’s left hand flexing painfully in his hair, Kyo began to worry that Kaoru was going to slip up and pull the trigger on accident. To die this way – his brains blown across the wall and a strange man’s dick in his mouth – was more disgrace than he could stand to even contemplate, and a thin tear of panic escaped one closed eye. He was torn between wanting the man to climax just so he would be released, and wanting to stall until his captor could get some control of his hands, or at least point the gun somewhere else. Kaoru solved the dilemma for him, abruptly pushing Kyo’s head back against the wall as he drove impatiently into the blonde’s throat.

“Swallow it,” Kaoru growled. “Swallow every last drop.”

With a sharp moan, the older man let his head roll forward, his grip on his pet’s hair painfully tight as he thrust a couple more times, then released into the blonde’s abused throat. Kyo whimpered and struggled to keep from choking as he obeyed, swallowing the sickeningly thick, salty fluid in spite of how it made his stomach turn. Kaoru held him firmly in place after he finished, resting his spent cock in the soft, warm mouth as he basked in the afterglow of his orgasm. Kyo just panted through his nose, trembling and whimpering faintly, aware of nothing so much as the still-warm steel resting against the side of his face and the bitter taste of cum on his tongue. Many long minutes passed before Kaoru caught his breath and pulled away with a content sigh, allowing his pet to relax his strained, battered jaw. He disarmed his gun and tucked it back in the holster concealed under his left arm, and Kyo sagged with relief to see it go.

_‘He… he didn’t kill me.'_

_'I’m alive!’_

_‘Oh, thank you…’_

Slumping slowly against the wall, the blonde panted softly and tried to convince his exhausted body to just stop shaking, if only for a moment. He didn’t know anymore if the tremors were from fear or cold or nicotine withdrawal, but either way they were draining him of what little energy he had left. The maid was humming a cheerful tune under her breath as she cleaned, her cheer incongruous with the blonde’s suffering, emphasizing it with her complete lack of concern. He flinched when Kaoru spoke.

“Good boy.”

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Kyo was tucked, huddled in a miserable ball, as tight into the far corner of his cell as he could possibly get. His eyes were glazed over, barely registering the bullet hole in the wall that he couldn’t seem to look away from. For several hours after Kaoru left him – after the maid scrubbed away every last trace of his fit, leaving the room completely barren – he couldn’t bring himself to move from that spot. For a long time, it was as though he had shut down entirely, unable to come to terms with what had happened to him, with everything that was and that would be happening to him. His mind, starved for food and sleep and nicotine, overwhelmed and confused, spiraled itself down to a constant, dizzy litany of the same handful of thoughts repeating themselves over and over.

_‘I could have died…’_

_‘He could have killed me…’_

_‘That hole could be in my head…_

_-“You are **my** prize, **my** consort, **my** courtesan, **my** pet, **my** plaything.”-_

_‘Kisaki… why?’_

_‘What did I do to deserve this?’_

_‘I could have **died** …’_

_‘He didn’t kill me…’_

At four in the evening, a noise like a door being open and shut from the other side of the locked door of his cell brought his fearful gaze away from the hole in the wall. He stared at the innocuous wooden panel, ears straining over the pounding of his heart to catch the sounds of footsteps crossing hardwood floors in an adjacent hallway, followed by what could only be a television. Just before six, the television sounds cut off abruptly, and everything was silent again.

He shifted his stare back to the bullet hole again until nine in the evening, when sounds from outside gave him stir once more. More doors opened and shut, more footsteps clicked on wooden floors, and this time, the lock to his own room disengaged. He turned his face down, staring at the floor and shaking as he bit his lip and wished himself invisible. The footsteps approached him slowly, and came to a halt directly in front of him.

Kaoru smiled slightly down at his captive. “I’m glad to see you’ve quieted down a bit. I’m thinking maybe I was too hasty in providing you with comforts you had not yet earned, so it’s understandable that you would be unable to appreciate them. We’ll start over, but properly this time. Come with me.”

Kyo let his eyes drift shut for just a moment as his captor turned and walked out of the room, leaving the door wide open. Despair and dread settled deep into his belly. He had been hoping, with every last fiber of his being, that he’d be left in peace for the rest of the night; that his captor would be content with the blowjob he’d given him that afternoon and he would be safe at least until the next day. Now from what Kaoru had said, he could only assume things were going to get worse for him, and he was afraid of what the man had in mind for “starting over.”

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” Kaoru’s voice called, warning.

_-“The quality and duration of your life at any given moment is completely dependent on my mood.”-_

_‘Don’t make him angry again…’_

Kyo swallowed nervously and dragged himself to his feet, moving reluctantly through the open door in a less-than-graceful stagger. It was hard to keep himself steady anymore, he was so hungry, so tired. He found himself in a spacious bedroom – almost half the size of his entire apartment – the centerpiece of which was a massive bed, easily large enough to fit four people comfortably. Every piece of furniture in the room was masculine in its simplicity, but clearly very high-quality, and it was all immaculately clean. A door off to one side was shut, and presumably locked. Looking to the other side, he watched his captor’s back disappear into a large bathroom that shared a wall with the room Kyo had been kept in.

He didn’t want to be anywhere near Kaoru, but he also didn’t want to make the man any angrier than he already had, lest the man lose his temper and decide to just kill him. To put him down like an untamed dog. Taking a steadying breath, he clenched his fists and forced himself into motion. He moved to stand in the middle of the bathroom and stopped there, staring resolutely at the floor as his body shook itself nearly to pieces.

“Come here,” Kaoru beckoned, gesturing the floor directly in front of himself.

Again, Kyo obeyed, though his heart was pounding frantically in his chest. When Kaoru’s hands came up to his throat, he flinched and squeezed his eyes shut, almost expecting those thin fingers to wrap around his neck and choke the life from his lungs. All that he felt, though, was a soft touch against his skin, and the now-familiar weight of his collar being removed. Blinking, utterly baffled, he brushed one hand over his bared neck and watched Kaoru’s hands lay the choker out carefully on a black plastic pad on the counter. Even seeing how the two ends of the clasp looked when disconnected, he had no idea how Kaoru had disengaged the locking mechanism on the device.

“Would you like to shower on your own, or do you need my help?” the man asked with a slight smirk. He knew what the blonde’s answer would be, but the question he’d posed verbally was not what he was really asking; he needed to know whether or not his pet could behave civilly now that his temper had been momentarily subdued.

“Sh… shower?” Kyo breathed.

“Yes. You only get what you want through good behavior, but I will always provide you with what you need. And you need a shower; you’ll get sick wallowing in blood and filth with all those open wounds.”

Kaoru gestured to one side, and Kyo shifted his gaze to follow it. Kaoru’s shower stall was larger than most, but it would still be exceedingly intimate with two people inside. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to be entirely alone either way; the walls were unusually short, only reaching as high as Kyo’s shoulders, allowing the occupants to see out as much as they let outsiders look in. Part of him wanted to refuse the shower; to stay covered in blood and fear-sweat until he was so repulsive Kaoru would never think of touching him again. It was a temptingly rebellious thought. But the part of him that wanted desperately to be clean joined forces with the pressing need to not anger his keeper again, and he deflated a little with resignation.

“I… I’d rather shower on my own…” he ventured carefully. Kaoru raised an eyebrow and Kyo realized his error, rectifying it quickly, “P-please!”

Kaoru was satisfied. “Alright. Go on then, I’ll give you ten minutes.”

It felt like a trap, but… to be clean again… to feel just a little human again… Biting his lip, the blonde moved into the stall and shut the door quickly behind him. Nervous hands tugged at the belt of his bathrobe – the right near-useless as every motion aggravated the deep cuts in his fingers and palms – and he draped the blood-stained garment over the door. As he grasped the faucet controls, he flashed an edgy glance at his captor. The man was fussing with something on the counter by the sink, blessedly granting Kyo the barest modicum of privacy. Stepping under the spray of hot water, Kyo gritted his teeth against the sting that flared up in each of his wounds and fought past it, scrubbing himself down with the soaps and shampoos he found on a rack in the corner. The water and foam running off of him as he rinsed ran first brown, then red, before finally becoming clear.

“Your ten minutes are up. Come on out of there,” Kaoru eventually called.

Kyo startled a little at the sudden voice, and reluctantly turned the water back off. When he turned to grab the robe again, his hand hit only the bare steel of the shower door, and he blinked in confusion. “The… the robe, it’s-”

“Dirty, and you won’t be getting another one. As I said, we’re starting over properly. Maybe if you behave yourself, I’ll give you clothes again later, but for now you’ll be going nude except for your collar,” Kaoru informed him casually, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “I’ve already seen you naked, and I plan to do so plenty more in the future, so you may as well get used to it now.”

Kyo’s eyes widened. “W-what?! You can’t-”

Kaoru shot Kyo a look that silenced the blonde immediately, his sharp eyes narrowed in admonition. “You really do need to stop trying to tell me what I can and can't do, especially as it pertains to how I treat my own property. Be happy with what you have, because in spite of what you might think, there’s always plenty more that I can take away from you. Now _come here.”_

_‘Don't make him angry… whatever you do, don’t make him angry again…’_

Kyo bit his lip and obeyed, hands folding in front of his groin anxiously as he left the protective shelter of the shower stall. He shivered as his captor’s hawkish gaze raked over him, from the tips of his toes to the soft, dripping spikes of his hair, shameless in his perusal of everything in-between. When Kyo came within arm’s reach, he gave a decidedly undignified squeak as Kaoru’s hands closed around his waist and lifted him up, depositing him to sit on a towel that had been laid out across the counter. Once settled, he immediately pressed his knees tight together and hunched nervously, trying to make sense of what was happening now.

 “Let me see your hand,” Kaoru ordered calmly, holding out his own palm.

Kyo blinked, hopelessly confused, and hesitantly started to reach out his left hand.

Kaoru shook his head sternly. “The other one.”

The blonde was significantly more reluctant to offer his captor his injured hand, curling it protectively against his chest. “Why?”

Kaoru raised an eyebrow. “It doesn’t matter. I told you to give me your hand, and whether I plan to lavish it with jewelry or cut your fingers off one knuckle at a time, you _will_ give me your hand.”

Kyo flinched hesitantly, but he knew he didn’t have much choice. Gritting his teeth and bracing himself, he held his wounded hand out to Kaoru. It was stiff and stung fiercely as he opened it, the deep cuts the glass shard had left beginning to ooze anew. Prepared for the older man to hurt him further, he was entirely mystified when the man instead set about cleaning and dressing the wounds across his palm and fingers with a gentle, competent touch. He blinked at Kaoru’s hands, then his face, then his hands again, utterly bewildered by the care he was being shown.

“Your shaking is making this somewhat difficult, pet. You have nothing to be afraid of; so long as you behave yourself, I’m not going to hurt you.”

“…I… I don’t…”

Kaoru sighed and shook his head, speaking calmly as he finished bandaging Kyo’s hand and set about doing the same for the bloody bruise on his cheekbone. “As things stand now, you will not receive any clothing or a new bed until you earn them back. The collar’s vibration sensor will be reactivated until you learn to conduct yourself civilly, whether I’m here or working. You’ll be confined to your room at all times unless I’m available to supervise you, and even then you’ll likely be kept on leash. It should have been this way from the beginning, but I suppose I wanted to make you a bit more comfortable in the hopes that it would make it a little easier for you to adjust, and in doing so, I set you up to fail.”

Kyo paled a little, reeling back from the hand that was tending his wound. “You… you’re turning the bark collar back on?”

Kaoru sighed and grabbed Kyo firmly by the chin, staring him down intently and cutting off the potential argument before the blonde could even voice it. “Yes, because you’re _noisy_. If you behave yourself for a while, maybe I’ll turn the sensor back off but until then, you will be quiet unless bid otherwise. I understand that this is a lot for you to take in all at once, but it’s getting late and my patience with you is running quite thin, so try to just hold still so we can finish up and I can go to bed.”

Kyo shrank under the harsh gaze and held as still as he could so the older man could place butterfly bandages over the gash on his cheek, speaking very softly. “I… I promise I won’t… I won’t yell anymore. Please don’t-”

“It’s not up for negotiation. You had your chance and you threw a temper tantrum and trashed your room. The sensor is coming back on, and that’s final. And if you make any further messes in that room, I’m rubbing your face in them, do you understand me?”

Kyo thought of the razor-sharp shards of glass that had been scattered across the floor and sink of his bathroom and cringed; it was an effective enough threat. He swallowed a nervous lump in his throat and nodded slowly, eyes wide. Kaoru seemed to approve, moving to clean up the self-inflicted claw marks running across Kyo’s chest. They were too shallow to need bandaging, but the older man was careful to thoroughly disinfect them. He also tended the raw friction burns and scratches around the blonde’s neck from where pulling at his collar had worn into his skin. Only when all of the younger man’s wounds were tended did he pick the collar up off the black pad – a charging station? – and put the hateful thing back around Kyo’s neck, reengaging the clasp with a decisive click.

“And more of this scratching will not be tolerated. You are not to damage any of my property, and that includes yourself,” Kaoru warned, hoisting the younger man back down off the counter and gesturing to a porcelain cup containing a new toothbrush and a comb. “Those are yours, go ahead and finish cleaning up.”

Brushing his teeth took a significant effort, with his stomach twisting wretchedly, bile threatening at the back of his throat. To have his own toothbrush… it was sickeningly intimate, and spoke too much of the amount of time he was meant to spend in this place. Kaoru ran his fingers tiredly through his hair and leaned against the counter, watching and waiting patiently for Kyo to finish before leading him back to his barren cell.

“I’m in no mood for further misbehavior today, so try to keep it down. If you wake me up, I’m just going to chain you out in the yard and you can sleep with the dogs.”

Kyo blanched at that – he had no doubt that Kaoru would not only carry out that threat, but that he would leave Kyo nude when he did, unprotected in the mid-October chill – and went to sit down with his back pressed into the far corner of his little room, legs drawn up close to his chest. He watched anxiously as Kaoru drew out the remote to his collar again, tapping and sliding his fingers over the screen with a few well-practiced motions. The device beeped once this time, and Kyo’s collar responded in kind.

“C-Can’t I- _ah!”_ Kyo whimpered as the damnable necklace beeped and shocked him almost immediately. The sensor was back on.

“I’d recommend that you keep quiet. The shocks will get progressively more powerful the more you try to speak over it,” Kaoru warned, yawning as he turned his back on his captive. “Just try to get some sleep. The next few days promise to be quite busy.”

By the time the clock on the wall read just after ten-thirty, Kaoru had left him and the white light on the ceiling had dimmed for the night. As tired as he was, sleep eluded Kyo for a long time once again; his foggy mind spinning wildly, struggling to come to grips with his situation. He had nothing now. No home. No money. No friends. No control. No voice. He wanted to be angry at Kisaki for doing this to him, but his indignant fury had faded by now into betrayed despondency, until all he felt was hurt.

Without anything to distract him from them, the withdrawal symptoms were worsening, wearing down on him mercilessly; chills, headaches, tremors, insomnia, stomach cramps. Around midnight, coughing fits began to plague him, creeping up to tickle incessantly at the back of his throat. Luckily, the sensor at his throat didn’t react to the involuntary sounds he was making, as there was almost no vibration involved without his vocal cords engaged. The fits hurt enough on their own, without the damned collar punishing him for them as well. Starvation made him dizzy and light-headed, weighing heavily at his bones and gnawing at his belly insistently. Once or twice, he dragged himself onto his hands and knees and crawled to a different corner of the barren room, to lie in a different position, but nothing helped.

Worst of all his ailments was the voice of his captor – cool and smooth and penetrating, like a harsh winter wind ripping across his mind – that he couldn’t seem to shut out.

_-“You are **my** prize…”-_

_‘No…’_

_-“ **My** consort…”-_

_‘I don’t want-’_

_-“ **My** courtesan…”-_

_‘I have to get out-’_

_-“ **My** pet…”-_

_‘I don’t want to die!’_

_-“ **My** plaything.”-_

Eventually, he gave up and simply laid on the floor, staring at the stark white bandages wound around his right hand, and let his mind go blank in the last attempt at escape he had available to him.

_‘Just don’t make him angry again…’_

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

Hours crawled by as night passed reluctantly into morning. The light set into the ceiling overhead shifted the intensity of its glow on a set schedule, beginning to brighten around six in the morning just as it had the day before. Had Kyo been able to sleep at all, the white light probably would have woken him by six-thirty when it reached its peak. As it was, his only reaction was that his eyes – glazed over and ringed in tired shadows – narrowed themselves slightly to adjust to the change.

He was just so tired; even if he let every muscle in his body go limp, they felt completely strained. It was worse after every coughing fit that took hold of him, until even the shaking that had been plaguing him stopped for lack of energy to maintain it. His head ached fiercely and his stomach twisted in on itself and he couldn’t remember ever feeling so cold in his life. Worst of all, there was nothing in this room to distract him from any of his pains or distressing thoughts. Everything was still, white, and silent. At seven in the morning, when he heard the sounds of running water from the wall his cell shared with Kaoru’s bathroom, he crawled over to that wall and pressed himself against it desperately. The music – so faint, almost inaudible – came with it again, and he held his breath in an attempt to catch every last beat he possibly could, clinging to the soft sound like a lifeline. An hour later, when it shut off again, he thought he might cry for its loss.

He spent his day as he’d spent his night; periodically getting up to drink water from the sink (his only buffer against gnawing hunger pains) or use the toilet, then curling back up in his preferred corner (the back left, furthest away from the exit door), occasionally dissolving into fits of uncontrollably violent coughing. He disliked how standing and walking around brought his nudity crashing to the forefront of his attention, and his starvation had progressed to a numb sort of weariness that turned his legs half to jelly, so he put off those trips to the bathroom for as long as he could stand. Most of his time was spent watching the only thing in the room that moved or changed; the minutes passing on the clock. In the pervasive silence of his cell, his dizzy mind supplied the sound of seconds ticking by, imagining a sound that the device did not truly produce.

_‘Kachi-kachi, kachi-kachi…’_

_‘How could Kisaki do this to me?’_

_‘We could have figured this out together, if only he’d asked…’_

_‘Kachi-kachi, kachi-kachi…’_

_‘Is anyone even looking for me?’_

_‘Does anyone even care that I’m gone?’_

_‘Kachi-kachi, kachi-ka-’_

**_‘I have to get out of here_ ** **_!_ ** _’_

Just after nine in the morning, the silent, barren monotony of the cell drove him past the brink of madness and he launched himself at the exit door with a burst of renewed energy. He shrieked and howled at the top of his lungs as he clawed at the wooden panel – begging and cursing and pleading and damning – until the increasingly-painful shocks issued by his collar eventually knocked the breath from his lungs. He collapsed against the pitiless door then, hyperventilating and fisting his fingers brutally in his hair as claustrophobic hysteria washed over him. He remained there, in a gasping, miserable heap, for a very long time.

_‘Kachi-kachi, kachi-kachi…’_

_‘I want to go home…’_

_‘I don’t want to die!’_

_‘Kachi-kachi…’_

_‘He didn’t kill me…’_

_‘…Thank you…’_

By noon, he’d found his way back to his corner and curled up into it, making himself as small and hidden as possible. Though his fit had been painful and ultimately fruitless, it did serve to drain him enough that he was finally able to sink into an exhausted slumber. He dreamed, but his subconscious was kind to him for once – allowing him sanctuary in half-formed images of baby dragons frolicking in a sunlit field, chasing butterflies – so that he slept soundly through them. And four hours later, when the door to his cell clicked open and soft footsteps across the hardwood floor approached him, he slept through that as well.

Kaoru looked down on his sleeping pet then, a faint smile crossing his features. He’d come into the room fully prepared to have to punish the younger man again; the guards stationed outside his quarters had informed him of the screaming tantrum the blonde had thrown this morning, just as they’d informed him of the ruckus the previous afternoon. They hadn’t mentioned the sound of anything breaking this time, so he’d chosen to finish his day’s work before returning, but he was prepared for a fuss, for his pet to be angry and defiant again, for the blonde to even attack him, perhaps.

But when he walked in and found Kyo sleeping peacefully – his small frame tucked into the corner and his face so soft in respite – Kaoru found he just couldn’t stay mad. Nothing had been damaged, and the blonde had long since quieted down… Perhaps the collar had issued punishment enough, and he could consider the lesson learned and move on with his troublesome new pet’s training.

It was the gentle slide of a warm palm over the side of his face that finally caused Kyo to stir reluctantly towards consciousness. He mewled faintly and burrowed his face into his arms against the ticklish touch, causing a grin to spread across Kaoru’s sharp features. Gods but his pet was sweet when he was relaxed. It was almost a shame to have to wake him, knowing he would just tense up again. He threaded his fingers through the younger man’s hair, enjoying how the fine blond strands looked against his tattoos.

“It’s time to wake up now, little one,” Kaoru called.

The voice – clear and firm and distinctly not familiar in any good way – brought Kyo crashing back to awareness. Kaoru felt the head under his hand twitch, and rubbed a few strands of soft hair between his fingers as a sudden tension washed over the small body on the floor. He watched as fatigue-bruised eyes slowly, warily rose to peer out over the shield of bare arms crossed over bare knees to examine their surroundings. A fluid procession of emotions crossed the younger man’s face; confusion first as he looked at the hardwood floor, then dawning recognition as he registered the clock on the blank white wall, then dejected fear as Kyo’s gaze came up finally to meet Kaoru’s.

_‘It wasn’t a terrible dream…?’_

_‘But… how could this hell possibly be real…?’_

“Good evening, my pet. I’m sorry to have to wake you, but we have some things to do before I go downstairs for my dinner.”

Kyo swallowed nervously and Kaoru felt him shift a little, probably trying to press closer into the corner, though there was no room left for him. Kaoru didn’t mind – at this stage of training, it was necessary for the blonde to fear him – but he also didn’t feel the need to exacerbate his pet’s worries further. He was capable of forcing the blonde to give him whatever he wanted, of course, but that wasn’t what he had in mind when he’d taken a pet. He wanted Kyo to learn to obey him willingly, and that could only be done with a precise balance of punishment and positive reinforcement. The older man stood and backed up to the center of the room, giving his pet room to breathe and, hopefully, relax a little bit. He held out one hand, beckoning.

“Come.”

Biting his lip, Kyo tried force his dizzy, half-lucid mind to make sense of the command.

_‘I don’t want to…’_

_‘But… if I refuse him… he’ll be angry again…’_

_‘ **Don’t** make him angry again.’_

It took quite a bit of effort – he was shaking again, and sleeping in such a cramped position on the hard floor left him wretchedly stiff all over – but Kyo managed to pull himself to his feet, bracing against the wall for support. Keeping his head bowed, choking on his own pervasive fear and nagging shame, he forced himself to cross the short distance to stand in front of his captor. Kaoru’s hand came up and Kyo flinched a bit as thin fingers wrapped around the back of his neck, cradling his head. Those digits rubbed against his scalp for a moment – almost soothingly – before the hand slid down to press at his back. He stumbled a bit, nearly falling over before his foggy mind could take the hint and spur his legs back into movement.

“Good boy…”

Kyo’s attention – apprehensive and half-focused as it was – was piqued as he found himself being guided out of his cell, and out of Kaoru’s bedroom. He tried his best to look around, to search for possible escape routes, eyes latching onto every window and door desperately. But Kaoru’s suite was huge, and every new room they passed only served to dizzy him further as he fought to absorb and store the barrage of new information.

A living room: a massive entertainment center, a plush leather sectional couch, a heavy wooden coffee table, and no windows. An office: a high-backed chair behind a steel-and-glass desk, a state-of-the-art computer system resting quietly. Again, no windows. A study: four luxurious arm chairs centered around a low table, standing lamps peering lovingly over their backs. There was one small window in there, tucked between the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that spanned the walls. Down a short hallway he saw what may have been a kitchen area, but his attention was caught by the sliding glass door that lead onto what looked like a balcony, a sturdy iron banister wrapped securely around the outside edge. They weren’t on the ground floor, then? Windows suddenly seemed less promising.

They came to a stop in a tea room featuring soft cushions on a tatami floor around a low, heavy table. Potted plants flourished in the red sunlight coming in from the wide window on the far wall and a small fountain bubbled quietly, falling droplets scattering the scarlet sunset playfully. In another time, another place, Kyo could have loved this room for its quiet, unassuming beauty. As it was, all he could do was stare at the array of dishes arranged on the table; covered, guaranteeing nothing, but oh-so suggestive. His mouth watered, stomach constricting noisily at the mere implication of food, and he felt his knees go weak.

Kaoru guided him to one of the cushions and pressed at his shoulders. “Kneel.”

Kyo obeyed immediately, dropping to the pillow with a soft huff, completely enraptured by the table. His hands flexed anxiously in his lap, itching to lay into the meal that had to be under those covers but too unsure of the situation to risk it. Kaoru smirked a bit to himself, sliding one of the other cushions next to his pet’s and settling onto it. From a smaller side table nearby, he picked up a length of lightweight, polished chain, securing one end around one of the table’s thick legs. Kyo’s attention never wavered from the dishes when Kaoru attached the other end of the chain to the blonde’s collar, securing him to the heavy furniture.

“Now then,” he murmured, “Are you hungry?”

Kyo bit his lip and nodded earnestly.

“Well good, because everything on this table is for you.” Kaoru felt his pet shiver with anticipation, and placed one hand on the younger man’s back to keep his attention. “But, you have to earn it first.”

Kyo’s gaze snapped to Kaoru’s face, confusion and more than a little wariness straining his features. Then the hand on his back slid down, brushing over the curve of his ass, and his eyes went wide with understanding. He went completely rigid, breath catching in his throat, and his uninjured left hand shot out instinctively to grab Kaoru’s wrist, halting the man’s explorations. Panicked rage pulled his face into a snarl as a fierce growl bubbled out of his throat. As much trouble as he was having thinking clearly about anything other than food, as much as the thought of angering Kaoru again frightened him, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he did not want to be touched that way by this man. Kaoru’s other hand came over to rest lightly the younger’s man’s grasping fingers, hawkish eyes staring his pet down.

“I don’t require your permission or consent to get what I want. You know that.” Kaoru spoke firmly, but gently. “But I will always give you the chance to obey. You only get what you want, so long as you give me what _I_ want.”

The older man watched and waited for his pet to make the choice; he would only punish or reward his pet for decisions Kyo himself made. The blonde’s wild glare faded as his head dipped to stare at their hands, eyes wide and somewhat unseeing as every last bit of focus he had went into trying to sort out the situation he’d found himself in. He wanted so badly to defy his captor, his pride demanding he shove the man’s invasive hands away from himself, and be damned with the consequences, he was no one’s fuck toy! But… he hadn’t eaten anything but cum since Saturday, and it was Tuesday evening now; he didn’t think he could survive much longer without eating something. He wanted to live, and he knew that whether or not he did was fully dependent on Kaoru’s goodwill.

_‘So, if… if I spread for him… I get food in return…?’_

_‘But if I refuse him… I get nothing…’_

_‘And what if… what if he fucks me anyways…?!’_

_‘I… I wouldn’t be able to stop him!’_

It was a harrowing prospect. He had no way of knowing whether or not Kaoru would be gentle with him no matter what he chose. The older man would almost certainly use some kind of lubricant – if only because a dry fuck would be painful for both of them – but nothing Kyo knew of the man assumed that he would stretch him at all, or even give him a chance to adjust before just pounding into him. He’d bottomed for a handful of male partners, and he knew for damn sure that he needed at least some preparation to be taken without pain. Kyo struggled with the choice that had been presented to him; days without food, cigarettes, or sleep wearing horribly on both his once-fiery will and his ability to make decisions.

“Well? Will you give me what I want?”

_-“The quality and duration of your life at any given moment is completely dependent on my mood.”-_

Frustrated tears stung at the back of his eyes when he realized he didn’t really have a choice.

_‘Don’t make him angry again…’_

_‘I’m so hungry…’_

_‘Maybe… maybe if I don’t fight him… it won’t be so bad?’_

Swallowing the lump of anger and disgust huddling at the base of his throat, Kyo forced himself to release his grip on Kaoru’s wrist, nodding his head slowly in reluctant acquiescence.

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

One thin hand between his shoulder blades guided Kyo to lower his torso, and he obliged shakily. Closing his eyes, he shifted back so that his knees were on the tatami and rested his chest on the cushion, face hidden in the crook of his folded arms. There was no shame in hiding, not from this. When unwelcome hands traced down his back, over his butt, down his thighs to press them apart, encouraging him to open up, he had to bite back a frantic whimper. His collar was still activated, after all; to make noise would only add injury to this insult.

Kaoru couldn’t be happier as he stared down at his pet. Even fraught with fear, Kyo was a beautiful sight to behold. The blonde’s back formed a graceful arch from where his shoulders rested on the crimson pillow, up to where his delightfully-rounded ass was raised in offering. The elegant curve of his ribs expanded and contracted rapidly, but smoothly as he fought to regulate his breathing. His legs – reluctantly parted in a tantalizing display – were that of a dancer, powerful but elegantly lean, his lightly-tanned skin near-flawless. Not being able to see his pet’s face was a slight disappointment, but that could come later. Reaching out to the small side table one more, he collected a tube of lubricant from one of the drawers.

Kyo bit his lip when he felt one slick finger press into him and for a moment, he couldn’t stop himself from clamping down, trying to push out the unwelcome invader. The digit only pressed deeper, twisting a bit as if to explore his insides at his captor’s leisure. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself – with more than a couple shuddering failures – to relax his muscles. He felt a hand come to rub the small of his back encouragingly before a second finger was added and he was clamping down again, wincing at how his own reaction increased the faint ache of the stretch.

_‘I need to relax…’_

_‘How am I supposed to relax?! I’m being **rap-** ’_

_‘No! I… I chose to do this, I chose to accept this!’_

_‘There isn’t… there isn’t a gun to my head this time…’_

_‘But isn’t it still…?’_

Sniffling, Kyo wondered distantly whether or not he should be happy that Kaoru was taking the time to prepare him. It was a concession purely for his comfort, since the older man certainly didn’t have to put any effort into stretching him; to a certain extent he’d probably enjoy himself more if Kyo was tighter. But it also meant that this whole ordeal would take that much longer to be over with. That much longer on his knees with his ass in the air, that much longer allowing himself to be violated. He had been expecting to be used – to be pushed down and fucked with no regard for his comfort, let alone his pleasure – so to be shown any sort of consideration… It almost made things worse, a blatant mockery of the affection and care that should accompany this act. It also robbed him of the pain he needed to fuel the anger that let him pretend to be strong, leaving him only afraid and sick with shame.

The two fingers inside him crooked, just a bit, and brushed against a cluster of nerves that made Kyo arch, hissing at the spark of unwanted pleasure that jolted up his spine. He had to bite into his fist – the bandages wound around his hand protecting his flesh from further damage – to keep from crying out as his keeper ruthlessly manipulated that sensitive nub, drawing his body towards arousal despite his mind’s railing protests. To his shame, Kyo felt himself slowly beginning to harden in response to Kaoru’s handling. He shook his head frantically; he didn’t want to enjoy this! He didn’t want any gratification from being fucked by his captor, he just wanted the man to use him and be done with it! But the expectation of pain – the need for it – only made the truth of his pleasure that much more poignant, and his body quaked under the strain.

‘ _No… damn it, **no** **!** ’_

_‘I can’t be enjoying this!’_

_‘I don’t want-’_

His foggy mind half-registered two quiet beeps just before a third finger was added. The slight twinge and ill-gotten pleasure quickly struck the soft sound from his attention, but a quieter corner of his psyche understood their meaning. It was difficult to focus properly and though that made the whole situation a little bit easier to deal with, it also made it harder to force himself to loosen up whenever he tensed. Kaoru was merciless in a way that Kyo hadn’t been expecting, and it was hard to come to terms with it. Panting, fighting against the steadily-tightening coil of heat building in his belly, he whined softly and pressed his face deeper into the pillow.

His left hand curled into a fist, slamming once, twice, three times – over and again – furiously into the tatami mats as angry tears streaked down his cheeks.

_‘I’m a fucking freak…’_

_‘I can’t think…’_

_‘Why can’t I just control-’_

“Try to relax, pet,” Kaoru murmured as he withdrew his fingers. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Thin hands grabbed hold of his hips, and Kyo’s back arched with a sharp hiss as he was slowly, relentlessly filled with something so much hotter and thicker than the fingers previously invading him. He felt his shoulders start to roll forward under the strain and had to spread his arms, bracing his hands against the floor to keep himself steady as Kaoru rocked deeper and deeper into him with languid but powerful thrusts. Kyo couldn’t help but growl helplessly, and not just because his inability to stay relaxed made every push an aching stretch; he could hear the soft clink of Kaoru’s belt with every rock of the older man’s hips, could feel the rough slide of wool slacks against his thighs. Kaoru hadn’t bothered to undress himself, which only served to emphasize the fact that he was using Kyo as nothing more than a means to his own pleasure. Bare but for his damnable collar, Kyo felt absolutely worthless beneath his keeper.

Then Kaoru’s cockhead was brushing against that traitorous cluster of nerves so deep inside him, and Kyo couldn’t hold back a mortified little groan at the spark that coursed through him as a result. Kaoru heard it, of course, and knew exactly what it meant, reveling in the soft sound just as much as he reveled in the firm body beneath him. He smoothed one hand fondly over the sweat-slicked dip of his pet’s lower back as he shifted his hips, driving at that same spot over and again. He didn’t hit it with every thrust, but he hit it more than often enough to leave Kyo a quivering, shame-ridden mess of sordid pleasure. The older man watched through lowered lashes as his pet turned his head, face coming free of its hiding place in the pillow in search of air. And but for the tears clinging stubbornly to thick eyelashes, the sight was stunning; full lips parted for panting and breathy half-moans, soft cheeks flushed, burnt-gold eyes blazing with lust-tainted fury.

Half-lucid with fatigue and starvation, Kyo couldn’t fight for long against the sensations flooding him, a steady barrage against his already-fractured will. Humiliated tears soaked the pillow beneath him, and his stomach twisted guiltily, but still his left hand crept of its own volition across the floor, seeking out the shameful ache between his legs. A whimpering moan escaped him as one of his captor’s hands beat him to his goal, wrapping firmly around his straining erection.

The tips of Kaoru’s thin fingers dug into the heated flesh just enough to send the blonde arching back with a gasp and a needy little groan as Kyo turned his face again into the cushion, using it now to muffle the sounds he couldn’t quite suppress. His heart constricted miserably as a stuttering litany of grunts, gasps, and moans poured from his throat; a lonely corner of his mind crying its desire to buck Kaoru off of him, to push the man away and run, for hours and days and weeks until he was too far away for this heartless man to ever touch him again. But the rest of his mind had given up on rational thought and his traitorous body was running the show now, pushing back against every thrust of Kaoru’s cock, rocking into every stroke of his hand.

_‘Don’t want…’_

_‘I don’t **want** this!’_

_‘I don’t…’_

_‘But it feels so…!’_

Kaoru went stiff behind him, a satisfied groan heralding the flood of molten liquid that he released into Kyo’s passage. A scarce handful of heartbeats passed in still silence, broken only by two voices panting harshly, before Kaoru wound his free arm around his pet’s torso and hauled the younger man up to sit with his back against his clothed chest. The blond head lolled back against his captor’s shoulder, hips beating weakly into the hand still stroking his weeping arousal. Thin lips brushed over his ear and he reached up blindly, grabbing onto the arm holding him up with both hands. He was desperately seeking anything like stability when it felt like his mind and body were both flying, but in opposite directions.

“Such a good boy…” Kaoru murmured, his voice low and smooth with satisfaction.

The hand around him constricted just a bit as it rubbed over his heated flesh, and Kyo arched into it with a sharp cry that was equal parts pleasure and anguish. Tears flowed from his eyes, cum spurted from his cock, and the two fluids marking the culmination of deeply contrasting sensations came together as they splashed across his belly. So intense was his release – so much did it take from a body that already had so little left to give – that Kyo’s vision went grey, and for a few blissful minutes, he drifted in a glorious haze where he could not think, could not hear, could not see, could not feel anything that went on around him.

Something warm and wet across his skin brought Kyo swimming back into awareness. Kaoru had gone and returned in the time that he’d been out, and was once again immaculately tucked into his pristine suit, hands clean and confident as they gently wiped the blonde with a damp towel. The older man looked so damn satisfied – so fucking smug as he cradled his pet in his lap to clean him – that Kyo couldn’t stand to look at him. He was so sick, so tired, so miserably ashamed… he simply turned his head away from his captor and let the man do as he pleased. The warm cloth ran over his belly, his groin, his thighs, his entrance, cleaning every last trace of their coupling.

Then the towel was gone and Kyo closed his eyes. He felt like he’d been hollowed out, like all that was left inside him was a little aching ball of angry misery bouncing around the empty shell of his body. It seemed like every time Kaoru touched him, the man took away a little more of him until he could hardly remember who he was before all of this started. He felt pieces of himself breaking and breaking again under his captor’s “training.” The distant corner of his mind still clinging to lucidity wondered if his soul would survive this place even if he managed to stay alive. Something cool and slick pressed brushed lightly over Kyo’s lower lip, and his eyes opened again in weary confusion.

“Open your mouth,” Kaoru ordered, looking pleased.

With a soft sigh – what did he have to lose? – Kyo obliged without bothering to look at what he was letting in. He already felt thoroughly defiled, and he couldn’t really think of anything his keeper could do at this point to make that feeling any more poignant. Besides, anything Kaoru wanted to put in his mouth would likely end up there one way or another. Something sweet and slick came to rest on his tongue and he blinked, closing his teeth on the object and chewing slowly, entirely mystified.

_‘It’s… a piece of melon?’_

He swallowed and tried to sit up, suddenly very attentive, succeeding only with the help of Kaoru’s hand between his shoulder blades. The older man only let him shift into a slightly more upright position, keeping him in his lap as he reached out and delicately picked up a bit of sushi. He brought the morsel to Kyo’s mouth, and the blonde’s stomach twisted noisily with want as he eagerly accepted it, eyelids fluttering with bliss. All other thought processes shut down. Kyo forgot that he was naked, limbs quivering with post-coital exertion, cradled in the lap of a man that had just fucked him against his will – albeit with his consent – trapped in a place and situation so surreal he could hardly grasp the extremity of it. All that mattered in that moment was the food.

Kaoru watched his pet with a fond half-smile as he hand-fed the blonde a veritable banquet of bite-sized foods; fried and grilled bites of meat, sushi, fresh fruit, steamed and pickled vegetables, delicate little sweet pastries, dumplings. He had to set a steady, slow pace to ensure that Kyo wouldn’t skip chewing in the hopes of getting his next bite sooner. The younger man accepted the food from him so eagerly, shaking hands grasping at the sleeve of his suit jacket each time his hand came into range, as if afraid it would stop or change direction before he could catch its offering. Kaoru ran his free hand over his pet’s hair as he fed him, enjoying the peaceful moment between them.

A bit of peach drizzled with honey left a streak of sticky sweetness on his fingers, and Kaoru paused his motions with a sly murmur, “Oh my… I certainly can’t feed you with messy hands…”

And that was all the prompting Kyo needed to pull his captor’s hand back into range by the sleeve, running his tongue over the older man’s tattooed fingers to collect every last trace of the offending honey. He did so every time a bit of food left remnants on the hand that fed him, without hesitation or need for further encouragement. He didn’t care that the act was sickeningly reminiscent of a begging dog, he didn’t care that that self-same hand had inspired more shame and fear and anger in him over the past couple days than he’d ever known, he didn’t even care that the man feeding him now was the source of his starvation in the first place. All he could focus on was his slowly-filling belly, and the steady renewal of his energy and lucidity with every bite he swallowed. In that moment – appetite whetted, hunger forefront on his mind – he would have done anything Kaoru asked of him, if it meant the man would keep feeding him.

Eventually, Kyo’s stomach started to bulge just a little, his breath deepening between each bite, and Kaoru knew he was getting full. The blonde still tried to eat – harrowed by the uncertainty of when he would next be fed – but Kaoru shook his head shortly after, replacing the covers over the dishes. His housekeepers would deal with the mess later. Unfolding himself slowly, he stood and indulged himself in a languid stretch before reaching down to unclip the leash attaching Kyo to the table, snapping his fingers to pull the younger man’s yearning gaze away from the leftovers.

“Up. Come on, now, we’re done here.”

Kyo’s stare shifted up to his captor, and Kaoru immediately braced himself for another rebellion. Something in his pet’s too-wide gold eyes had been strengthened by the much-needed meal, and something else had gone almost feral; fear of Kaoru’s anger warring with anger at the threat of starvation. Kyo was convinced that he wanted to eat still, despite the almost-nauseating full state of his belly, and Kaoru was trying to take him away from his food. Food that he had traded his dignity for, as the persistent ache and quivering fatigue in his legs mercilessly reminded him. He felt like an animal hovering over a hard-won meal, cornered by a predator.

Kaoru – never one to be cowed, particularly not by his own pet – met the younger man’s wild gaze with his own cold stare. “You’ve been so sweet tonight, little one. Don’t make me have to punish you now, after doing so well.”

_‘Punish…?’_

_‘The gun!’_

_‘Don’t make him angry!’_

_‘But… **food** …’_

Kyo bit his lip, looking back at the table again. He was full, vomiting was a real risk if he continued to eat. But the memory of being so weak, so dizzy, so empty for want of food was painfully fresh, and the threat of suffering through starvation again was terrifying. And this meal was so much more than simply much-needed sustenance; it had been the closest thing to compassion he’d experienced in this hellish place. His beleaguered mind had latched onto everything here – the beautiful room, the delicious food, the soft sound of the fountain, even Kaoru’s gentled touch – and he was reluctant to leave it all behind to return to his barren cell.

_-“Be happy with what you have, because in spite of what you might think, there’s always plenty more that I can take away from you.”-_

_‘I’m lucky he fed me at all…’_

_‘And he didn’t hurt me… when he fuc-’_

_‘ **Don’t make him angry.’** _

_‘He’s so cruel when he’s angry…’_

Part of him knew that in order to survive – to live long enough to find a way out – he had to obey Kaoru. Another part of him railed against his complacence, screaming that he should never have bowed to his captor, allowing himself to be mounted and fucked like a _bitch_. A smaller, frailer part latched onto every small kindness he was shown with alarming desperation. With one last, longing glance at the leftover food, Kyo swallowed his urge to rebel and bowed his head miserably, slowly rising to his feet as he’d been bid.

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

Standing in the center of Kaoru’s bathroom, Kyo stared at his own reflection with a hollow gaze. He looked… an awful lot like how he felt, actually, and the veracity of it was almost startling. He was battered. Exhausted. Worn. The self-inflicted scratch wounds across his chest were stark red against the pallor of his skin, his ribs just a little more visible than they’d once been over the gentle swell of his newly-full belly. His knees trembled with grief and fatigue, hands clutching weakly at his sides as he crossed his arms defensively over himself, his shoulders weighed down into an exhausted slump that had never been there before. His eyes were ringed with tired black shadows, and he found he couldn’t even look at them without shame turning his stomach. What he’d just done… what he’d just allowed to be done to him… what he’d just participated in…

_‘I’m not a… not a whore…’_

_‘I’m not!’_

_‘Except… I just…’_

Kaoru’s hands came up to disengage his pet’s collar. “Would you like to shower alone or with me tonight?”

Kyo shuddered, letting his eyes shut against the pitiful image of himself in the mirror. “Alone. …Please.” The weak defeat in his voice was sickening to his own ears.

“As you will. You have ten minutes, pet.”

Kyo was quick to oblige, ducking into the shower stall and turning the water on as hot as he could stand it. Countered by the chill in his heart, the spray was scalding, and his skin flushed immediately under the assault, causing a shiver to work its way up his spine. He savored the bitter sting. Collecting the soap from the rack with shaking hands, he scrubbed himself brutally, wishing he could erase the memory of his captor’s unwelcome touch – on him, around him, inside him – from his quivering flesh. He couldn’t find it in him to really damage himself the way he wanted to, not with his captor’s warning still fresh on his mind. Couldn’t sink the sharp edge of a fingernail or – gods help him – a razor into his wrists or chest or thighs to bleed out some the turmoil roiling inside. But he could burn, just a little, and he could scrub until every centimeter of his skin was pink and new, and he did just that for every last second of his ten minutes.

“Time’s up. Come here.”

Flinching, Kyo complied silently. Once again, Kaoru wrapped his hands around his captive’s waist and hoisted the younger man up to sit on the counter, a plush towel beneath to catch the water dripping off of him. Kyo shivered unhappily as the man cleaned and dressed all of his wounds with a gentle touch, turning his face away to hide from Kaoru’s obvious pleasure at his obedience. His collar was returned to its place at his throat, he was allowed to brush his teeth and hair, and he was returned to his cell, folding himself into his corner as the door clicked shut behind his captor’s retreating back. It was only six in the evening, the light overhead still bright, but he couldn’t remember a time he’d ever been so physically and emotionally drained. Sending off a silent prayer for his own dying humanity, he rested his head against his knees and drifted off to sleep.

He dreamt, in the creeping hours between when he was left and when the false dawn of his overhead light would wake him. Cruel, fitful dreams that made him cry out in his sleep, his collar shocking him awake in merciless retribution for every plaintive noise that escaped him. He dreamt of those he’d loved the most and been forsaken by – his parents, his sister, Takara, Kisaki – walking away from him in disgust and never looking back. Of cruel, unwanted hands sliding over his flesh, handfuls of money shoved into his screaming mouth in payment for his spread legs. Of being locked in a giant birdcage, rattling the bars in a fit of unadulterated panic as a spider the size of a horse prowled behind him. But as erratic as the sleep was, the rest that he did get was deeply healing, and he didn’t fully awaken until twelve hours later, when the light brightened again.

In his waking hours, he tried to get past what had happened the night before; to push it to the back of his mind and lock it away where it couldn’t hurt him anymore than it already had. At seven o’clock, he crawled to the wall, just as he had the previous morning, to press his ear against the wall and capture every last snippet of Kaoru’s showering music that he possibly could, soaking up the blessed distraction. When the sounds of his captor preparing for the day faded, he tried to focus on other things. Nine o’clock: he tried to examine every last wall, corner, and floorboard of his room again, for some way to escape. Ten o’clock: he tried to pray to gods he wasn’t even sure could hear him in this miserable place, cross-legged in the center of the cell, hands pressed together tight against his forehead. Eleven thirty: he tried to let his mind be as blank as it had been when he was starving and sleep-deprived, to spare himself the derision of his own cruel mind.

_‘Fucking **whore**.'_

It didn’t work.

_‘I didn’t want to…’_

Twelve o’clock: he fell to his knees, wincing at the soreness lingering in his lower back, the exhausted quiver still making his legs feel like warm rubber. The well-known, once-savored sensations of having been thoroughly fucked the night before, demanding his attention, never letting him forget what had happened. He wished with every fiber of his being that he could scream; let lose the wild howl coiled waiting at the back of his throat, ready and willing to drown out his own vicious thoughts. But he couldn’t do it, not with the collar ever threatening him, not with the chance of Kaoru returning from work to deal with his fits of temper.

_‘Didn’t want to what?’_

_‘Spread your damn legs for the chance to eat from his hand like a fucking **dog** **?!** ’_

_‘Cause you did!’_

_‘He didn’t rape you, you just fucking offered up!’_

One o’clock: shaking his head, tears streaming down his cheeks, he pulled at his hair mercilessly, relishing the pain. It wasn’t enough, could never be enough punishment for this latest sin, but it was something, and he pulled until pale gold strands came loose in his fingers. He felt himself twisting on the razor’s edge between despair and rage, each vying for the right to rip at his racing heart as he fought with himself.

_‘I didn’t want to starve!’_

_‘I have to live…’_

_‘I have to give him what he wants, or he’ll kill me!’_

Two o’clock: baring his teeth in a furious snarl, he slammed his left fist into the wall. He had always been, at the heart of himself, a deeply prideful creature, adamant about never compromising who he was for what others wanted him to be. Growing up the way he had – so slight of frame, with a unisex name and a soft face – had instilled in him the need to constantly assert his masculinity, his strength, because it was so often called to question. He’d always had trouble taking slights against his dignity with any kind of grace or calm, and being reduced to a simpering fucktoy was the most galling slight he’d ever suffered.

_‘ **Bullshit**.’_

_‘You were moaning like a bitch in heat.’_

_‘You were humping his fucking hand.’_

_‘You got off on it, you sick fucking piece of shit!’_

Three o’clock: panting harshly, his eyes snapped open, and the warring sides of his mind seemed to fuse together into deadly clear insight. Kaoru had weakened him; bent him further and further to his nefarious will until something inside him began to splinter and crack. And he wanted so badly to pull himself back together, to find himself in the quivering mess of terror and shame that he was becoming before he broke for good. The fire in his eyes was slowly returning, but it was an uncontrolled blaze this time, lashing out with blind desperation to seek freedom from the smothering confines of his cell, his collar, his captor.

_‘I have to get out of here.’_

_‘I can’t let him touch me again!’_

_‘I **have** to get out of here.’_

Four o’clock: the door to his cell clicked open and wild eyes stayed glued to the floor, hidden beneath the golden fall of his bangs. It was unfortunate timing. If Kaoru had come earlier, when Kyo had been reduced to tears in his own shameful misery, or later, when he would maybe have been able to settle himself down into a more rational despair, things might not have been so bad. But everything had swirled together – his pain, his rage, his shame, his panic – into a vortex of all-consuming emotion. He’d been shaking in fear, exhaustion, hunger, and withdrawal since he’d awoken in Kaoru’s custody, but the tremors wracking him now were fueled purely by desperation. His anguish flared and burned away the last of his capacity for rational thought. He was nothing now but a cornered animal.

**‘I have to-’**

“Oh, you’re out of your corner,” Kaoru remarked, almost pleasantly.

His smugness made Kyo sick, and the blonde’s lip pulled up into a hateful sneer, hidden by his bowed head.

_‘Don’t make him ang-’_

**_‘I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!’_ **

“Come on then. We’ll get you your dinner.”

Polished shoes came to a stop in front of Kyo, a thin hand came to rest lightly on the back of his head, and a switch was thrown. His feral gaze rose to meet his captor’s and Kaoru barely had time to register the silent snarl – his own features going cold as death in the space of a single heartbeat – before the diminutive blonde was flying up from the ground, his skull crashing against the older man’s face. Kaoru brought his arms up to defend against him, hissing at the flare of pain from his nose and lip even as the smaller man’s momentum drove them back out into the bedroom. Kaoru’s back was slammed against a low dresser, knocking a vase to the ground with a sharp crash, and he growled, eyes narrowed with venomous fury.

“Goddamn it!”

Kyo was quick to disengage and make a break for the bedroom door, but Kaoru caught him by the back of his collar and dragged him to the ground with a powerful yank. Kyo gagged and sputtered, hands coming up to grasp at the leather band cutting off his airways, and rolled to kick out at his captor, knocking the older man off-balance, but Kaoru was far too enraged to release his hold. They wrestled wildly, Kaoru’s superior size, strength, and skill balancing precariously against Kyo’s sheer adrenaline-fueled desperation and startling speed. From the doorway, two large men in crisp black suits poured in, having abandoned their posts outside Kaoru’s suite to rush to their master’s aid when they heard the sound of a struggle.

Kyo did not know how to fight – he’d always been staunchly nonviolent unless self-defense absolutely demanded it, and even then it took a lot to provoke him – and honestly, he wanted to run more than he wanted to hurt anyone. But Kaoru and his security enforcers had him surrounded, and he had been a dancer for years; possessed of all the prerequisite coordination, strength, and agility that the occupation demanded. It took the two guards several tries to get the blonde disengaged from their boss, unable to get and keep a grip on lithe, surprisingly-powerful limbs powered by a tempestuous determination. And when they did – supporting and restraining the smaller man by an arm each – the blonde let loose the only other weapon at his disposal. He threw his head back and shrieked with everything he had, his collar beeping over and over again, the flesh of his neck twitching grotesquely at the ever-ramping shocks.

_“Fuck!”_

Kaoru gritted his teeth and reeled away from the sound, so much worse in the confines of his room than it had been in the open air the night he’d brought Kyo home. One of the guards let go of the blonde’s arm to cover his ears, the other reaching out to try to cover his captive’s mouth. He was rewarded for his tenacity with sharp teeth sinking in gums-deep into his wrist, roaring as blood welled up rapidly around the blonde’s plush lips. The guard that had disengaged returned with a vengeance, grabbing Kyo’s arm again in one hand, his hair in the other, and forcing him facedown to the floor with one harsh movement. Kyo tried to scream again, frustration and pain wrenching inhuman sounds from his throat, but he was muffled now by the floor, and only managed to hurt himself as the collar punished him over and over until he fell silent, panting harshly for breath as he bucked futilely against the men holding him.

Kaoru stood, running one hand through his hair, eyes gone pitch black and cold as ice with wrath. His lip was bleeding, his jaw was bruised, and even his guards – easily twice his size and busy wrestling down a vicious hellcat – cowed under the fury in his glare. Drawing the back of one hand over his bloodied mouth, he stared down at the one frantic gold eye he could see peering out of a curtain of blond hair. For a moment, his hands flexed, itching to beat the younger man for his insolence; to wrap his fingers around that straining throat, to slam his fists into that panicked face, to grab that soft blond hair and smash the stubborn skull underneath into the wall again and again until Kyo learned his place. It took every last vestige of his self-control to stay the urge.

With a deep, stabilizing breath, Kaoru looked away and pointed at the open door to his pet’s room, snapping at his guards, “Put him away.”

Kyo was lifted from the floor – twisting and thrashing wildly in the stronger men’s grips – and thrown back into his cell, crashing to the floor in a flailing heap. He scrambled to his feet, rushing back towards the exit, but the door was slammed in his face before he got more than halfway there, and locked by the time he reached it. Another keening wail tried to force itself out of his chest, but the lingering threat of more shocks caused his throat to constrict involuntarily. His own body betrayed him now, conditioned by force to keep him voiceless as he pounded hysterically at the solid wooden panel, throwing himself against it over and over.

_‘I HAVE TO GET OUT!’_

_‘I HAVE TO GET OUT!’_

_‘I HAVE TO-’_

The light overhead went out and Kyo jerked around, eyes wide, panting harshly. It was fully off, not just dimmed as if for night, and he stared into the pitch darkness with more than a little panic. He couldn’t see anything – not the clock, not his hands in front of him, not even a thin outline of the door. The writhing mass of fury and panic in his chest quieted abruptly, sinking like a stone in his belly.

_‘What… what’s happening?’_

_‘Why is the light off?!_

_‘Wh-'_

_-“Be happy with what you have, because in spite of what you might think, there’s always plenty more that I can take away from you.”-_

_‘…’_

_‘Oh…’_

_‘Oh gods…’_

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

The darkness of the cell was perfect; eternal and inescapable. Kyo stayed pressed against the door for an untold stretch of time, eyes straining as wide as he could possibly make them, hoping – praying, begging, yearning – for some tiny vestige of sight to return to him. But there was nothing. The overhead light was completely dark and the door was flawlessly sealed on all four sides. It was like there was a heavy blanket over him and nothing he did could push it aside. The more time that passed – unseen, unheard, uncounted – the harder his heart began to pound in frantic dismay. His own panting breaths seemed far too loud in the void.

_‘It’s not coming back on…’_

_‘Why isn’t it coming back on?!’_

_‘Please… oh gods, **please** come back on…’_

By this point, he knew every last centimeter of the tiny barren room, probably better than he knew the backs of his own hands after so many times trying to find a way out of it. But now, plunged into such unadulterated, impenetrable shadow, it became a vast chasm of ominous mystery. This was punishment, he understood. Kaoru was punishing him by taking away his false sun with its false dawns and false dusks, leaving him with only bitter night. Swallowing a nervous lump in his throat, trying to ignore the genetically-ingrained insistence that predators had to be lurking nearby in this flawless shadow, he crawled on shaking limbs to his corner, one hand on the wall for guidance.

_‘I can’t…’_

_‘Was that…?!’_

_‘No… no, there’s nothing…’_

Unable to see the clock, silence stretching uninterrupted from any of the adjacent rooms, Kyo had no way of knowing how long he sat crammed into that corner, staring with wide, unseeing eyes into the abyss. Long enough that his throat began to burn with thirst. Long enough that his stomach began to twist with hunger. Long enough that fleeting false images and sounds began to tease at the edge of his deprived senses, causing him to press ever further into his curl. It could have been just a couple hours, his mind convincing itself that his body was deteriorating faster than it truly was if only because he had no proof to the contrary. It could have been days, as it felt.

Eventually, the hunger and thirst became too much. He felt his way to the bathroom – a harrowing, arduous trip that seemed to take an eternity with his heart pounding wildly in his throat – only to find that the sink produced nothing but a single sad puff of mist when he twisted the handle. His water had been turned off as well. A horrified whimper escaped him before he could stop himself, and his collar was quick to correct, albeit at the lowest setting.

_‘Oh gods…’_

_‘ **Oh gods…** ’_

He’d thought his room was barren before, thought himself truly immune to further loss because he already had so little left. But now… He had no light; he could not see even the stark white walls or plain hardwood floors or the face of the clock. He had no sound; nothing seeped through the walls or the door from his captor’s movements, and the faint whisper of his own frantic breathing was too empty, too hollow to be real. He had no water; nothing to assuage his thirst or hunger or the constant aching itch in his throat. He’d taken those things for granted, and to have them taken away… It was too much emptiness, too much nothingness, and the suffocating void overwhelmed him.

Staggering out of the bathroom, crashing into the far wall because the room felt so much bigger than it was yet seemed to be constantly shrinking around him, Kyo succumbed quickly to the panic creeping up to grip at his throat. He spun – his breathing reaching a fevered pitch as he began hyperventilating – and reached out, hands hitting walls, sliding over corners, fumbled at locked doorknobs. Every time he turned and reached out he seemed to hit another wall and his dizzy mind convinced itself that he could feel them moving towards him in the dark.

_‘I can’t… the room…’_

_‘It’s so small…’_

_‘Is it getting **smaller?!** ’_

He couldn’t help but think this was worse than if Kaoru had killed him. This was the absence of life – the denial of so much sensory input abrupt and deeply traumatic – without the freedom of death. It was so hard to breathe, his lungs straining to take in and hold air no matter how deeply his gasped, and his heart was pounding so quickly he feared it might burst in his chest. Wheezing, gulping down air frantically, he stumbled and fell to his knees with a muffled thud that seemed at once too loud and too dull in the darkness.

_-“The quality and duration of your life-”-_

_‘WHY DID YOU MAKE HIM ANGRY, YOU STUPID SON OF A BITCH?!’_

_‘Stupid!’_

_‘ **Stupid!** ’_

_‘Is he…’_

_‘Is he just going to let me die in here?’_

Tears he couldn’t see, could hardly feel, streaked down his cheeks, making the floor beneath his hands slick as he crawled into his corner. It took several tries, and a very long time; several disoriented circuits to find the exit door and the bathroom doorway and be sure that where he came to rest was really _his_ corner. Every obstacle that he came across – every bump of his fingers against a frame, every corner that wasn’t his own, everything solid that he hit without seeing – made him cry harder in frantic desperation. When he finally found his place and folded himself tightly into it, his left hand crawled up of its own volition, fingers curling into hard claws, nails pressing-

_-“This scratching will not be tolerated. You are not to damage any of my property, and that includes yourself.”-_

Kyo’s legs kicked restlessly and he writhed in the corner, teeth gritted with helpless frustration. The memory of Kaoru’s words halted his hands just as effectively as if the man were present, grabbing his wrists. He wanted it so badly! Wanted to tear open his skin because it was something to feel and feeling something – _anything_ – was better than this suffocating nothingness. But he couldn’t do it, his hands stayed by fear of further retribution the same way his voice had been stolen. He squeezed his eyes shut – or did he? He couldn’t tell anymore… – and tried to steady his breathing because he was getting dizzy and it felt like he was falling.

_‘Help me…’_

_‘Gods, somebody please help me!’_

Time untold – hours, days, a week, a lifetime – stretched by, and Kyo spiraled ever further into madness. He couldn’t tell when he was awake or asleep, couldn’t tell if what he heard and saw were dreams or hallucinations or real monsters surfacing in the hell of his room. Hands and insects and snakes ran over his skin and he slapped at them hysterically, only to hit air – feeling nothing, because nothing was there. Faces and shadows and freedom danced in front of him and he reached for them only to have the image fade away – seeing nothing, because nothing was there. Footsteps and voices and inhuman growls whispered all around and he held his breath, straining in vain to catch them – hearing nothing, because nothing was there. He was flying and he was falling; he was drowning and he was suffocating; he was dead but – gods help him – his heart was pounding so hard!

At some point he realized that some of the whispers he was hearing were coming from his own lips, unpunished because his vocal cords were not engaged, so there was no vibration to activate the collar. It didn’t help; the words were too soft and too worthless in the gaping, all-consuming maw of darkness.

His body deteriorated just as quickly as his psyche. His limbs became trembling and uncoordinated, the taut curl of his fetal position in the corner gradually loosening to a listless slump. His stomach ached and twisted fiercely at first, then became despondently numb in dejected acceptance of renewed starvation. His mouth was tacky and dry, and though he managed to brave two trips to the bathroom to relieve himself, both were painful demonstrations of just how desperately dehydrated he was.

_‘I’m sorry!’_

_‘I’m so sorry!’_

_‘Please…’_

He’d never regretted anything in his life as much as he regretted the bid for freedom that he was now being punished for. Even when he was seventeen and his parents had caught him ass-up-head-down in bed under his first boyfriend, being soundly fucked with a strap-on. He'd cared deeply for the other boy and was entirely unapologetic about the perceived offense, and so had been disowned, banned from ever seeing or speaking to his younger sister again and spending over half a year homeless as a result.

Even months back when Kisaki gambled away his share of rent, and Kyo had to pay it all on his own. He’d had a severe ear infection at the time, but after rent and bills he couldn’t afford to go to the hospital. Eventually the infection got so bad that he collapsed at work and had to be rushed to the emergency room, and by the time they got it taken care of, his left ear had been irreparably damaged.

Even when he proposed to Takara and she told him – almost as if she were surprised he still believed someone like her could ever really love someone like him – that she’d only been using him. He’d gotten cross-eyed drunk and carved the words “NO FUTURE” deep into his chest, and would have died from alcohol poisoning had Kisaki not broken the door down and bent him over the toilet to keep him from suffocating on his own vomit while he called an ambulance.

_‘I fucked up so bad…’_

_‘I’m sorry…’_

_‘Why did I have to fuck up so damn bad?!’_

Because now, unlike all of those painful times, he was completely and undeniably isolated. He had no one and nothing to turn to, and his heart ached miserably for want of some kind of comfort or catharsis. He was human, damn it! A social creature and a tactile creature and he needed company and contact and sights and sounds and smells and tastes because without them, he couldn’t be sure he was even real.

What did he have here? A collar that marked him as property, silenced him, subjugated him. Darkness that swallowed him, suffocated him, trapped him. Silence that taunted him, chewed at the frayed edges of his nerves. Walls that closed in around him and a door that would never budge. Starvation and dehydration and madness and regret and _nothingness_.

_‘I made him so angry…’_

_‘He’s never coming back…’_

_‘He’s going to leave me here alone forever…’_

In what could have been the fifteenth hour or the fourth day, Kyo realized that he wanted Kaoru to come back. And lost in his own despair, he couldn’t question or contest that realization. Since Kisaki had abandoned him, Kaoru was the only one who had spoken to him, Kaoru’s radio while he showered was the only music he had heard. Kaoru’s was the only hand that had touched him, whether it was to molest and violate him or to bandage his wounds. Kaoru was the only one who had let him out of this room, to the beautiful tea room at sunset for dinner or the master bathroom for showers.

_‘I’m sorry…’_

Kaoru had smiled at him and glared at him, praised him and scolded him, played with his hair and forced him to suck him off, fed him and fucked him. He was the source every misery and ecstasy that Kyo had experienced in this place.

_‘I’m so sorry!’_

Kaoru was a _god_ , granting Kyo life at his own discretion with omniscient eyes and omnipotent hands. He controlled everything around him, benevolent only when it suited his wants to be so, because nothing else had the power to influence him.

_‘Please forgive me…’_

Kaoru was a _devil_ , whispering sinful nothings into Kyo’s ear as he dragged him into hell. His voice echoed constantly even when he was gone, like a cruel conscience ever urging Kyo towards obedience and submission.

_‘I’ll be good!’_

Kaoru was all he had. Kaoru was all that was real. Kaoru was all that he felt or saw or heard, Kaoru was his food and his water and his air, and without him…

_‘I promise I’ll be good…’_

Dizzy, in a vicious haze of starvation and dehydration and sensory deprivation, Kyo slowly felt his way around the room to the exit door. He slumped against the frame, eyes closed – maybe; the ghostly images were the same in the impenetrable darkness as on the backs of his eyelids – and began to claw at the wooden panel. The sound was soft and unobtrusive, a plea rather than a demand as he plaintively called out for his master like a dog left out in the cold night.

_‘Please come back…’_

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

When next the door opened, it was like an otherworldly gate between life and death. Curled in a miserable slump against the frame, Kyo couldn’t tell whether the gateway was to heaven or hell; the light flooding in was so beautiful, but excruciatingly painful. After the lifetime spent in the dark, his eyes snapped themselves shut against the brightness, but he strained to open them again, desperate to see even if through a haze of delirium and stinging tears. A dark stain in the middle of the glaring white patch shifted and contracted, shrinking down to a low hunch with the faint sound of wool cloth sliding against itself. The shadow uttered a sigh and stretched out, one hand sliding lightly over Kyo’s cheek to collect a tear, and he pressed into it, starved for warmth and contact just as much as he was for food and water.

“Oh, pet… why do you make me punish you this way? I would so much rather treat you gently… let you out of your cell and shower you with gifts… Why can’t you just behave yourself for more than a single day?” Kaoru wondered. His voice held a little disappointment, but overall it seemed too calm for the turmoil it incited in his captive.

 _“I’m sorry,”_ Kyo whispered sorrowfully, face fallen in stark desperation. One hand came up to grasp – after some fumbling misses – at the sleeve of Kaoru’s jacket, holding the older man’s hand against his face. _“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”_

Part of Kaoru – a very small part, that wasn’t consumed by his residual anger – was mildly impressed that his pet had figured out the loophole in the collar’s control without having to be told. His head tipped a bit to one side, light spilling over the subtle swell of a bruised cheek and the dark line of a split in his bottom lip. “I believe you. But I’m not sure I’m ready to let you apologize to me yet. You really made me very angry, Kyo.”

The blonde flinched a little at the use of his name. It felt like a bitter chastisement, and his heart began to quiver anxiously. He gripped his captor’s sleeve harder and whispered again, _“I’m sorry, I’ll be good, I swear I’ll be good! I’m so sorry…”_

Kaoru’s eyes narrowed a bit. “I’ve told you before, your lip service does me little good. If you don’t have anything else to say for yourself, I’m just going to leave you in time out until my mood improves on its own.”

Kyo bit his lip as a shuddering sob crept out. There was so much expectation in Kaoru’s voice, written across his face, but no explanation seemed to be forthcoming. Panic was crushing Kyo’s chest in a vice grip as he struggled to figure out just what his captor wanted; what it was he had to do to end this punishment.

_‘I don’t…’_

_‘I don’t understand!’_

_‘What does he want?!’_

A fragment of memory bubbled up helpfully from a corner of his hazy mind.

_-“…-mpletely dependant on my mood. I’m pissed off right now, so I suggest you open up that lovely mouth an-…”-_

_‘I have to…?’_

Comprehension struck Kyo; Kaoru didn’t accept _verbal_ apologies. If he wanted his captor’s mood – and by association, his own circumstances – to improve, he had to act the part he’d been assigned. In his barely-lucid desperation, the realization that would have only days ago twisted his stomach into vicious knots of fear and fury, now only gave him a weak flutter of hope. It never occurred to him that Kaoru hadn’t actually offered him anything tangible in return for any apology he might make. It was a potential way out of his most recent taste of hell, and that was all that mattered in that moment.

_‘I have to… make him stop being angry…!’_

Kyo’s eyes fell into a hopeful, pleading slope and he nudged against Kaoru’s hand. _“Please… please, let me apologize? I’m sorry; please let me make it up to you?”_

Kaoru’s glare softened just a shade, considering the proposition. “Hmm… I don’t know, pet. It would have to be an exceptional apology to earn my forgiveness this time.”

Kyo swallowed a shameful lump in his throat – there was no place for pride here, not after what it had already cost him – and pressed on, _“Please **Master** … please, let me apologize?”_

A look of mild surprise flashed over Kaoru’s face, then a slow grin spread. He ran one thumb slowly over his captive’s dry bottom lip, watching a pink tongue peek out to flick over it in invitation. “…You may be better suited to this than I originally thought. Very well, you may apologize to me. It had damn well better be worth my while, though; you’ve already made me late for dinner.”

Kaoru stood from his crouched position and beckoned the younger man to work. Kyo obliged instantly, hands and eyes intent as belts and buttons and zippers came apart under them, zealous as if his salvation lay inside his captor’s pants. At that moment, he almost believed that it did. With an eagerness that would have sickened the man that he‘d been only a week ago, he engulfed Kaoru’s cock and set everything he had to sucking his captor off. The part of him that had been screaming once – he didn’t know how long ago, now… before the empty madness of “Time Out” – for pride and rebellion had been lost into the abyss. Now all that remained was fear of reprisal and, growing stronger every day, want for kindness.

It helped that he was more than a little delirious by this point.

“Nnh…”

Kaoru threaded the fingers of one hand through the younger man’s hair, eyes rolling back as the blonde worked him from relaxed to almost painfully hard in the space of a bare handful of minutes. Even with all the stress his new pet had caused him – the noise, the stubbornness, the extra responsibilities, the infuriating marks on his face – he knew in that moment that so long as the blonde always gave head like this, he would keep the maddening creature forever. Kyo was decadent when he put his mind to it; enthused, without the sloppy mindlessness of the sycophants Kaoru usually took to bed, skilled without the routines and tricks of the courtesans that he’d previously kept as companions.

“ **Fuck** …”

When his captor uttered a low, indulgent moan, underscored by a soft _~thud~_ as his head tipped back into the doorframe, Kyo’s desperately unstable mind registered a little spark of joy. It was working! He was making Kaoru less angry! He renewed his efforts, hands braced against the older man’s hips as he sucked and swallowed, his tongue dipping and sliding and swirling for all he was worth. And when tension rode through the taller body, rendering it stiff and quivering, he didn’t need to be told to swallow every drop of Kaoru’s cum, milking him dry as if it were the man's fury solidified that he was pulling out. With a hand still gripping his hair, he couldn’t sit back, so he simply tucked Kaoru back into his pants and rested his head against the man’s hip, panting softly. He ran his tongue absently over his lower lip to catch any lingering messes and looked up at his keeper with painful hope.

It took a few moments, but when Kaoru returned from his spiraling ascent into bliss, the plea for forgiveness written across his pet’s face made him smile. Seeing it, Kyo sagged against the older man’s legs with relief. If he’d been in a better state of mind, he might have at least considered just what it was he had been hoping for with his apology. He’d have wished for food or water or music or his light to come back on; something to lessen the strain of his situation. As it was, all he wished was for Kaoru to not be angry with him anymore. Because Kaoru knew just what to take away to make him suffer, the man must also know how to end that suffering, and Kyo believed with all of his heart that pleasing his captor would make that happen. How Kaoru might choose to do so was his own design.

“Such a good boy… you don’t do anything by halves, do you?” Kaoru murmured, a bit breathless.

 _“I’m sorry… Master Kaoru, I’m sorry…”_ Kyo whispered again.

“I know you are, pet.” Kaoru smiled softly and leaned down, kissing the top of Kyo’s head. “I forgive you.”

Kyo’s eyes closed and he shuddered under the force of the relief those words instilled in him, hiding his face against Kaoru’s hip. _“Thank you…”_

“Of course.” Kaoru nodded graciously. “Now, can you stand? As I said, I’m late for dinner. If you can walk, you may join me. If not, I’ll come back and feed you later.”

 _“I… I can walk…”_ Kyo insisted. He wasn’t entirely sure that was true. Every bone in his body felt like lead, and his muscles were slack with fatigue and malnutrition, but if it meant not being locked back in his cell again – even with the promise of return – he would make his legs carry him.

“Very well. Come, then.” Kaoru started toward the door, then paused, glancing back at his pet with an appraising frown. “Hmm… actually… we’ll get you dressed first. I’m somewhat disinclined to share _all_ of you with the entire staff.”

When Kaoru crossed the room and beckoned his pet to follow, Kyo obliged, though his body trembled terribly under the strain. When Kaoru gave him a single garment to dress himself, he obeyed then as well, barely registering the simple black hakama that hugged his waist and fell loose around his ankles. And when Kaoru lead him out of the bedroom, out of the master suite and into the mansion proper, he followed blindly, never so much as glancing at the swarms of people they passed or the lavish hallways they crossed. His vision swam, and his head was full of static, but he managed to move one foot in front of the other to follow after his captor. Exhaustion chewed at the frayed edges of his nerves, and he was infinitely grateful for the hand on his shoulder that kept him from becoming lost as they went downstairs to a private dining room.

_‘Am I… falling?’_

_‘No… just dizzy…’_

“About fuckin’ time, Kaoru!” a jovial voice called, starting Kyo out of his haze.

“Sorry everyone,” Kaoru answered casually, a lazy grin tugging at his lips. “I was held up for a bit. Let’s eat.”

Kyo was guided to his knees onto a cushion next to a square table, just as the last time Kaoru had fed him. But this time the table was taller, meant to be used with chairs, and there were other, vaguely recognizable people seated around it, staring at him. He swallowed a nervous lump and pressed against Kaoru’s legs as the older man took the chair next to his cushion. An increasingly-familiar hand came to rest on the back of his head, massaging once, and he mindlessly sought comfort in the touch as playful banter flew over his head.

 “Ah! You should feed that kid too, Kao, he’s too little to shrink any further.”

“Pft! Like you can talk, Die, with your skinny little stick legs.”

“Oh Totchi, I thought you liked my legs! I’m heartbroken, truly.”

“Nah, I like Shinya’s legs. All sweet and shapely, like the rest of him.”

_‘They’re all so… happy…’_

“Are you thirsty?” Kaoru murmured to Kyo while the others chatted and ate.

Kyo nodded anxiously, and felt a rush of gratitude as a bottle of water was pressed into his hands. From the first tentative sip, he felt his mind begin to reestablish a tenuous sort of stability that he clung to, even as his body became ever heavier with fatigue. It was so much better than the madness, even if he was quickly reminded that a lucid mind was rarely a blessing in this place. It made it harder for him to accept the reality of his situation, made him notice things that sent his heart racing anxiously. Most notably at the moment, he found that the other men peering over a vast spread of food at him unnerved him, if only for the half-formed memories they lived in.

Die, seated at Kaoru’s left. The redhead who’d spoken first, watching him now with too-perfect teeth flashing in a too-perfect grin: _-“Shut him up.”-_

Toshiya, seated at Kyo’s right. The blue-haired one – lacking the dreadlocks Kyo could have sworn he’d had before – smiling congenially: _-“Just let me look, sweetheart.”-_

Shinya, seated across from them. The auburn-haired one, peering at him over a cup of tea with something half-hidden, like… relief? Kyo had never heard him speak.

These men had surrounded Kaoru when Kisaki had sold him, just as they surrounded him now; with a pervasive aura of intermingled devotion and familiarity. Perhaps the worst part of their stares was that even as he knelt there – looking entirely battered and frail, leashed by a short chain to the table, shakily and desperately accepting food from Kaoru’s hand like a starved puppy – they didn’t seem perturbed in the least by his presence or condition. They were interested in him, sure, but it seemed only a casual curiosity, unbefitting the turmoil he’d experienced here. Almost like his situation was… normal, and not a horrifying violation of his body and soul.

The wool slacks Kyo’s cheek had been resting against chimed and vibrated, startling him away from Kaoru’s side. He watched, despondent, as his keeper grunted a brief apology to his friends and left the table to answer his cell phone. Kyo had only eaten a few bites; he was still so hungry… And he believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was not to feed himself from his master’s table. He chewed restlessly on the rim of his now-empty plastic bottle and watched Kaoru pace.

_‘He looks upset…’_

_‘Is he going to be angry again?’_

The thought was deeply distressing.

“Hey, kid.”

Kyo turned and was a bit startled to find Die leaning around the table to look at him, holding out a bread roll in one palm. He stared at the roll, then at Die, then at the roll again, unsure. Was he allowed to take food from other people? Was he allowed to _refuse_ food from Kaoru’s friends? The last thing he wanted to do now was risk getting in trouble again. He looked back at Kaoru, biting his lip, but his captor was entirely absorbed in his phone call. He didn’t know what to do, but he was so hungry… Hesitantly, he reached out and took the bread.

Die grinned and winked at him. “Just don’t piss off the boss again, huh?”

Kyo just stared at him, uncomprehending, as he worked his way through the roll.

“Haha, yeah,” Toshiya chuckled. “He’s been so fucking pissy since Wednesday – hasn’t smiled once. You have to keep him happy for us, so he’s not such an insufferable slave driver.”

 _“Keep… him **happy** …?”_ Kyo whispered uncertainly, looking back at Kaoru again.

“Well sure! That’s your job, you know,” Toshiya asserted around a mouthful of noodles. He swallowed the bite and grabbed something off his own plate. “Here you go, honey.”

Kyo accepted the bit of sushi from the taller man’s palm, holding it delicately between two fingers of his bandaged right hand. _“My… job?”_

A new voice spoke up, and it was so calm and so serious in comparison to Toshiya and Die that it had Kyo’s attention immediately. “You may not realize it yet, but you’re in a position of unique power. As his companion, you have more influence over Kaoru than anyone else, even us.”

Kyo stared at Shinya, astounded. Power? He’d never felt so powerless in his life!

“No shit, and the courtesans are all a-fluster about it,” Toshiya groused, making a face. “Nozomi especially. She had herself all convinced she was going to be his companion forever, flaunting it around the baths like he'd proposed to her or something. She’s been a pain in my ass ever since he kicked her out.”

 _“She… she **wanted** …?!”_ Kyo was lost for words.

“Oh hell yeah, they all do. Even the Queen Bitch over here,” Die grinned, gesturing at Toshiya and getting a rude gesture in return. “Kao spoils his companions.”

“Unlike the last master of this house,” Shinya intoned.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence and Kyo watched Toshiya and Die look at Shinya with something like sympathy, then at their meals with something like guilt. The conversation dropped off there. Kyo leaned against Kaoru’s chair again, chewing on the rim of his water bottle while he waited for his master to come back, and pondered what he’d just been told. People actually… _wanted_ to be Kaoru’s pet? And Shinya, Toshiya, and Die seemed to think his situation was perfectly acceptable…

_‘He’s only cruel when I make him angry…’_

_‘Maybe if I just… behave…’_

The chair shifted, and Kyo felt wool cloth against his cheek once more. He looked up and watched silently as Kaoru resumed his meal right where he’d left off. It was mystifying, watching him laughing and smiling with his friends like he wasn’t the master of some massive crime syndicate, like he wasn’t the warped god/devil twisting Kyo’s soul between his fingers. Kaoru noticed his stare and smiled down at him, feeding him a bit of fruit, then handing him a bottled green tea.

_‘He’s… happy…’_

_‘Everything is okay… because he’s **happy** …’_

“Hey! We should have a picnic tomorrow,” Toshiya suggested excitedly.

“…That could be fun. It’s supposed to be the last nice day of summer,” Shinya put in.

“What’s tomorrow, Saturday?” Die wondered, then nodded. “I’m game. We’re talking about lunch, though, right? It’s going to be dark out by dinnertime.”

“Well yeah, lunch. Out in the gardens, it’ll be great!”

Kyo clutched the plastic bottle tightly, his harrowed mind slowly beginning to conform itself to the reality of his new life, if only because he couldn’t handle the strain of fighting it anymore.

_‘I just have to keep him happy…’_

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

“Do you trust me?”

It was such a basic question; simple words, simply arranged. But that one word – that one damnable word that had burned Kyo over and over again in his lifetime – had come back to torment him once more, sending his mind into a frenzy. _Trust_. Confidence, reliance – faith – in another human being… He had truly trusted only a handful of people over the years, but every last one of them had betrayed him in the end; peeling away smiling masks to reveal the truth behind their every manipulative lie. His most recent lesson in trust had been more devastating than all the others, so even under the best of circumstances, he would be hard-pressed to make himself so vulnerable again.

And these were nowhere near the best of circumstances.

He was sitting – damp and completely bare – on Kaoru’s bathroom counter, a plush towel beneath him to catch the warm water dripping from his hair and skin. His collar was on its charging pad, the mostly-healed wounds from his first days in this place were freshly tended. He was clean and fed and out of the soul-swallowing void that his cell had become, but fear still had his heart in his throat, still kept his muscles taut with the desire to flee. Kaoru was standing in front of him – holding a _straight razor_ and asking him about trust – and he was entirely at a loss.

_‘What… what does he want me to say?’_

_‘What would make him happy…?’_

_‘… **Do** I trust him?_

_‘How can I be expected to?!’_

The events of the past week flashed through his mind. Kaoru had kidnapped Kyo; stripped him, collared him, and caged him as an animal. Kaoru had put a gun to his head, demanding his obedience on pain of death. Kaoru starved him, then made him spread his legs in exchange for the right to eat. Kaoru locked him in a pitch black, silent room with no food or water for two straight days until he was driven to madness. And yet…

_‘He uses me just as much any of **them** ever did… more…’_

_‘But… he told me right from the beginning that I was his to use…’_

_‘He never tried to mask his intentions, did he?’_

Kaoru had promised him that that if he misbehaved, his life would be an unmitigated hell, brought upon himself by his own actions, and every word of that had been proven true. Kaoru had promised him that he had no life and no worth beyond what he could do for the man. That was true as well. Kaoru had promised him that the quality of his life was dependent on his captor’s mood; that he could end Kyo at any time without consequence or qualms, that Kyo was his and he could treat him however he damn well pleased… That he could take and take and take until Kyo had nothing left, because all he had in the world was what Kaoru chose to give him…

_‘His word is… all I have, isn’t it?’_

So far as Kyo could tell, Kaoru had never once lied to him.

“Answer me. When we’re in private like this, I expect you to be honest.”

_‘He wants honesty?’_

_‘When all is said and done…’_

A whisper began to creep out of him, _“I think-”_

“Speak up, pet. If the collar is off or deactivated, you may assume you have permission to speak, so long as you can remain civil,” Kaoru corrected him.

Kyo swallowed, staring at the floor. Even when he wasn’t wearing it, the memory of his collar was menacing. But he forced himself to speak aloud – though his voice remained soft – because Kaoru had demanded it. “I think… I think you might be a devil…”

_‘Please don’t be angry.’_

“Oh? What makes you say that?” Kaoru wondered, amused.

“What else could you possibly be? How else could you… Every time you touch me, it feels like you take another piece of my soul. Every time you look at me, it feels like my every sin is… laid bare. And when you speak… gods… when you speak, it’s like every word is burned into me, and I can never escape your voice, even when you’re not around, I…” Kyo’s voice wavered then, dying out under the strain before bubbling back to life. “But then… you have power beyond what I give you, power all your own… power over life and death… and doesn’t that make you a god?” Shaking his head, he lifted his gaze to meet Kaoru’s, as confused and as resolute as he’d ever been. “I trust that whatever you want to happen… will happen, one way or another. I trust that… things will get better if I… if I just don’t make you angry…”

Kaoru seemed entertained by that answer. “I suppose that’s a healthy perspective, given the circumstances. Well then, tilt your head back, and try not to shake too much.”

Kyo bit his lip. Kaoru was holding a straight razor, asking him about trust, and telling him to bare his throat? What could he possibly-

_-“So long as you behave yourself, I’m not going to hurt you.”-_

Taking a deep breath and holding it tight, Kyo placed all of his faith in the memory of those words, because they were the closest thing he had to hope. He tipped his head back obligingly, baring the soft flesh of his neck. He held absolutely stock still – eyes fixated on the ceiling light and hands gripping the edge of the counter hard – as something cool and smooth slicked over his cheeks, chin, and jaw, and from the corner of his vision, he saw Kaoru lean in close, smelled the man’s expensive cologne and felt-

_‘…He’s…’_

Felt the cold slide of steel run smoothly up the side of his face.

_‘Shaving my face?’_

With the same deliberate care the man had shown in everything Kyo had ever seen him do – bandaging him, feeding him, petting him, fucking him – Kaoru shaved away a week’s worth of facial hair. It was almost… soothing, somehow, the gentle caress of such a deadly blade wielded by such a competent hand, and his eyes drifted shut as his captor worked. Kaoru was very good with his hands… Kyo slowly released the breath he’d been holding and felt himself relax just a shade, moving his head only when his keeper’s light touch guided him to do so. He was being rewarded, it seemed, for his-

_‘Trust?’_

_‘That’s too much! I can’t-…!’_

_‘…And yet, he’s-… he always-… what else do I have…?’_

“There we are. That’s much better.”

Kyo’s face was wiped clean with a damp towel, then thin hands wrapped around his waist to lift him down off of the counter. He was given another hakama to wear – this one made of soft, thick scarlet cotton – and he tied himself into it gratefully. Why Kaoru wanted him wearing even a casual version of such an incredibly formal bit of clothing, he couldn’t begin to guess, but the garment was warm and acted as a shield for his battered dignity, so he welcomed every stitch of it without question or complaint. When Kaoru picked up his collar and moved to put it back around his neck, however, he ducked his head, shying away nervously as panic twisted in his chest. He knew what came next.

“Do I… do I have to… go back? I-Into that room? Th-the darkness, I don’t… I don’t think I…” Kyo thought of his empty cell and cringed, feeling the madness of sensory deprivation still eating away at his nerves. As much as the prospect of staying awake longer made his bones ache with exhaustion, as much as the prospect of asking Kaoru for _anything_ made his stomach quiver with terror, the alternative was so much worse. “Please, can’t I stay out just a little longer?”

“Lift your chin, pet.”

Kyo deflated miserably. Kaoru’s voice was entirely apathetic, and stripped him of any hope he might have had for avoiding his cell. At least the man wasn’t angry with him for having asked; he could be thankful for that much. He lifted his head obediently, watching his keeper’s unbearably calm face as the man secured the collar on him once again. But Kyo looked so downtrodden – his eyes so dark with grief, his mouth turned down with such utter dejection – that Kaoru had to chuckle in spite of himself, rustling the younger man’s hair fondly.

“Well how can I say ‘no’ when you look at me like that?” Kaoru wondered, amused. “You make me feel like I just kicked a puppy down a damn drain pipe.”

Some of Kyo’s sorrow faded from his face, replaced entirely by confusion.

_‘He’s… **teasing** me…?’_

_‘He’s so different when he’s in a good mood…’_

“I suppose you have been awfully sweet tonight… Tell you what; I’ll give you a choice. I can turn the light back on now, or you can stay in the dark for one more night. If you choose to have the light now, you’ll have to spend tomorrow in your room by yourself. If you choose to spend tonight with the light off, I’ll turn it back on in the morning, and you may accompany myself and the others on our picnic lunch.”

By then, they had moved to stand in front of the doorway to Kyo’s cell, and the blonde stared into the gaping abyss anxiously. He was torn by the choice he’d been given. Even now, he was sure he could see the demons writhing in the shadows; could hear them whispering to him, calling for him. They were waiting for him to return so they could plunge him into madness once more. Kaoru had soothed the physical suffering inflicted by Time Out – the starvation, the dehydration, the filth and weakness – but nothing could hold off the psychological assault his own mind inflicted on him while in the void.

_‘But… to go outside again…’_

_‘Even if he has me on the leash…’_

_‘To feel the sun… the wind…’_

Kyo had not been born in Tokyo; he was not a creature of the steel and concrete city crush. He’d spent his childhood among the gnarled branches of ancient trees, on creaking wooden bridges spanning over rushing streams, with birds overhead and bugs underfoot. Those years had instilled in him a deep-seated love of open spaces and a claustrophobic twinge that unsettled him when walls and ceilings fought to keep him contained. And he knew – he _knew_ , even when the memory was partially damaged by head trauma and drugs – that Kaoru’s home was surrounded by a vast, flourishing garden. Even if he didn’t remember how the chase began or ended, he recalled running the night he’d first come to this place, and within that memory, he found the smell of grass and fall pollen, the sound of water tinkling by, the feel of leafy branches brushing over his bare arms.

Kyo realized what his choice had to be.

_“I… I want to go outside… please?”_

Kaoru nodded, looking pleased. “Alright then. Try to get some sleep, and if you can behave yourself for one more night, I’ll take you out into the gardens.”

Head hung, shoulders slumped, Kyo moved reluctantly into the darkness of his cell. He heard the door start to swing shut behind him, saw the band of light in front of him beginning to narrow, and looked back over his shoulder at his keeper’s retreating back. Something occurred to him – a question that would ramp the madness waiting for him in the dark to a fever pitch if he didn’t get the answer now – and he turned quickly.

_“Ka-… Master Kaoru?”_

Kaoru paused, looking back at him curiously. “Yes, pet?”

_“You… you’re not angry, are you?”_

The older man smiled. “Not at the moment, no. Why do you ask?”

Kyo shifted nervously. _“I just thought… because I called you a devil, before…”_

Kaoru chuckled. “Even if something like that could offend me, I did tell you to be honest. I’ll never punish you for doing as I ask. Besides, others have called me the same plenty of times in the past.” Scratching his chin thoughtfully, he grinned a bit, and added, “I’ve also been called a god a few times, though you’re the first to call me both in the same breath.”

Kyo bit his lip, nodding as he backed himself slowly into his corner and huddled into it. With a faint smile still curving his lips, Kaoru turned away from his pet then, shutting and locking the door behind himself. Everything was dark and silent once again, and Kyo’s heart began to pound restlessly in his ears as the air went thin in his lungs. He clenched his hands into the folds of his hakama, grateful for its warmth, and focused his thoughts on the reward he’d been promised, clutching at the final fragile thread of hope keeping him stitched together.

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

Kyo was in heaven. Someone, somewhere, had finally decided that he had suffered enough and was granting him reprieve in the form of this venture into paradise. It was glorious; the sun was shining, bright and beautiful in a flawless sapphire sky, the air warm with only the occasional light breeze to rustle the reddened leaves on the trees around him, and birds tittered overhead without a care in the world. The gardens – lush and lively – seemed to stretch on forever. A swallowtail butterfly landed on a fall-blooming flowered bush nearby and Kyo found himself gravitating towards it with wonder, the heavy black brocade of the day’s hakama sliding smoothly against his legs as his bare feet sank into thick grass.

“Kyo.”

The voice – cool and smooth, yet jarring, like a trickle of ice down his spine – halted the blonde dead in his tracks, bringing him back down to earth with a start. Kyo looked back at his master anxiously. Had he strayed too far? He was hardly more than a couple meters away from the picnic table Kaoru was sitting at, but still… He moved back quickly to the older man’s side. Given this little taste of bliss, still raw inside from his night in the maddening dark, he was abjectly terrified to do anything that might make Kaoru change his mind and put him back inside. As his keeper’s arm slid around his waist, he looked back sadly, watching the butterfly flutter off on the next breeze.

“Ne, Kao, you should let him run around a bit,” Toshiya advised, gesturing at the blonde. “He’s a dancer; he needs exercise if you want him to stay all fit and pretty.”

Kyo perked a bit with ill-disguised gratitude. Toshiya was speaking about him as if here weren’t even present – or worse, as if he were a dog that had been kenneled too long – but he couldn’t care at the moment. The blue-haired man was arguing his case, arguing for his freedom, brief and limited though it was bound to be. He turned pleading eyes on Kaoru, biting his lip hopefully.

“Hmm… he _has_ been cooped up for a while… I suppose you’re right. Alright then.” Kaoru put his hands on Kyo’s shoulders and turned him to face out, pointing to a sprawling tree maybe fifty meters away. “You see that tree?”

Kyo nodded eagerly. _“The old willow?”_

“Yes. You can go out as far as that tree, in any direction from this table, until we’re done setting up lunch.” The older man leaned in closer, eyes narrowed slightly in warning. “I expect you to come back when I call you, and may the gods help you if I catch you outside your boundary. Understood?”

Kyo paled a bit and nodded again, more slowly this time.

“Good.” Kaoru sat back, smiling again and releasing his pet. “Go on then, have fun.”

The blonde’s steps out started out hesitant, but became longer and bolder with each one taken as his fear was swallowed by his need for freedom and open air. He looked around and noted landmarks that were an equal distance from the picnic table as the tree; an iron lamp wrapped in ivy, a stone statue, a tall rose bush with peach-colored flowers. He was limited, penned in with an invisible fence in the form of a threat of undefined punishment, but still, Kaoru had granted him a surprisingly wide space to explore. A stream wound its way through the area, a wooden bridge arching over it, just inside of his boundary, and he ran over to that first.

“Oh man, those puppy-dog eyes are too much! He’s so fucking precious, Kao,” Toshiya sighed enviously. “I wish you’d have let me keep him… He’d be so pretty all made up, wearing fancy clothes under the stage lights.”

“He’s not a puppy, Toshiya,” Shinya admonished gently. “You saw what he did to Kaoru’s face. Trying to dress him up would be like trying to put lipstick on a wolverine.”

“No shit. Inoue is out of commission for two weeks – at _least_ – while his wrist heals from where the kid bit him. You sure it’s a good idea to let him loose out here?” Die wondered, looking over Shinya's shoulder as the younger man unpacked the baskets holding their lunch. The auburn-haired man noticed him and scowled, elbowing him in the ribs, and he grunted with a pout before moving to help. “What if he runs?”

“I doubt he’d risk it. To be honest, if I’d known putting him in isolation would make him so agreeable, I’d have done it much earlier in the week,” Kaoru mused, watching his pet explore. “He’s been all sugar since I let him out yesterday.”

“You think you’re going to keep him for a while, then?” Toshiya asked. “You were so mad before, I was sure you were going to ditch him.”

“Mm… I did consider it, for a bit; selling him off or throwing him in a brothel… It’s been a long time since anyone pissed me off quite that badly. But he learns quickly enough, and he’s actually kind of interesting to talk to when he’s behaving himself. Once he settles down, I think he should be quite fun to have around.”

“Really? What’s he like? You should turn the collar off, I want to talk to him,” the blue-haired man demanded excitedly.

Die made a face. “Spoken like someone who’s never heard the banshee scream.”

Kaoru snorted, amused. “It is a pretty terrible sound.” His eyes flicked over to Shinya, a hint of concern evident in dark chocolate irises. “…Shinya…?”

Long-fingered hands hesitated in their motions. “Yes, Kaoru?”

“I know this must be uncomfortable for you.”

Die and Toshiya quieted, looking worriedly to their youngest friend.

Shinya only shook his head, resuming his task. “…I won't lie, it is a little. But you’re entitled to take and train a companion for yourself, and I know that you’re not… the way He was. I’ll be happier when he looks less… frail, but I’m fine. Really.”

Kaoru hummed thoughtfully, looking back out at his pet. He blinked with surprise, grinning a bit. “What the hell is he doing?”

The other three turned to follow his gaze. Out across the gardens, Kyo was perched on the balls of his feet, balanced on the waist-high railing of the small bridge. He had always been somewhat prone to climbing on things – low walls, fountain ledges, benches, bike racks – when he walked around town, and found them to be the best resting places. Kisaki had always teased that it was because he wanted to feel taller. He didn’t want to admit that that might be true, but he could never think of any other excuse for the strange habit. Whatever the reason, he was at ease on the narrow beam, hands tucked behind his head as he stared down at the stream rushing beneath him.

So much tension had bled out of him, and though fear still niggled at the back of his mind, he was more or less at peace out here in the sunlight, watching koi dance through the flowing waters below. To be dressed again, after a week of degrading nudity, was as much a blessing as food, light, and freedom had been. Wind tugged at his hakama and he shifted his gaze down to the heavy brocade silk, eyes tracing over the scarlet lines of Kaoru’s spider-and-cross emblem where it was embroidered in front of his left ankle.

_‘Everything…’_

_‘Everything is so much **better** , when he’s happy…’_

_‘But he promised me that much, though, didn’t he?’_

_‘That my life would depend on his mood…’_

_‘But how can I make him happy… when I don’t know him at all?’_

He frowned to himself, trying to assemble what he’d learned so far. Kaoru didn’t mind if he spoke – evident by his acceptance of Kyo’s whispering to get around the collar’s control – but he didn’t like Kyo to be noisy. Kaoru also put more stock in actions than in words, but he obviously liked it when Kyo called him ‘Master.’ Kyo wasn’t allowed to damage any of Kaoru’s property, and his own body was on that list, but Kaoru could damage him at will. Kyo got what he wanted only so long as he gave Kaoru what he wanted, but Kaoru could take what he wanted without giving anything in return.

_‘All I know…’_

_‘All I know is what **not** to do, to keep him from getting angry.’_

_‘And even then, I’m never sure…’_

Kyo lowered himself into a crouch and scratched his cheek under the mostly-healed cut from Kaoru pistol-whipping him earlier in the week. He glanced back towards the picnic table, watching as his master’s mouth split into a lazy grin as Toshiya said something, gesturing vehemently, and Die answered it with what could only be a joke. Shinya touched Kaoru’s shoulder and spoke; more calm than the other two, but spurring another round of laughter. They all seemed very comfortable together, and Kaoru seemed at ease in the presence of the other three.

_‘Maybe… maybe his friends can help me?’_

They all seemed very comfortable with Kaoru’s habit of taking people as pets, so it made sense that they might be able to offer him some sort of advice. Kyo made a mental note to ask them the next time he got a chance. It was a small thing, but actively making Kaoru happy was the closest he could come to taking his fate back into his own hands. He was slightly encouraged by the knowledge that his master had kept other companions in the past, and that those people were still alive somewhere. Maybe one day he would be set free as well, if only he could keep his mind and his body intact that long.

_‘Unless… I guess there’s always the chance I’m just a sex toy.’_

_‘Maybe I have to just stay in the cell until he wants to use me?’_

_‘Gods, I hope not…’_

A low, throaty growl from behind him startled Kyo out of his thoughts, and he tensed as he turned slowly. His eyes widened as the blood drained from his face. There on the bridge behind him – legs braced in a bold, aggressive stance, heavy lips pulled back in a drooling, toothy snarl – was the biggest dog Kyo’d ever seen in his life. The thing had to weigh as much as he did, all glossy black fur stretched over a muscular frame, with intelligent eyes and cropped ears set into a massive head. The creature’s mouth alone took up a full half of its skull, and Kyo was absolutely frozen as he stared into that maw.

“Hold!” a voice called. The command quieted the dog a bit, but Kyo couldn’t bring himself to so much as breathe as a man in black cargo pants, boots, and a fitted sleeveless shirt jogged over to them, one hand resting on the pistol holstered at his side. “Step down off of the rail, kid, hands where I can see them!”

Kyo’s mind shut down in terror. Dogs – giant goddamn monster dogs – and guns were things that had only ever existed in movies and video games to him. He knew that other people in other countries kept them commonly, but no one in his life had ever possessed either, and to see both at once, threatening him, was more than he could handle.

The man seemed upset by his refusal to move, pulling out his gun and flicking the safety off. “I said put your hands where I can see them!”

The dog barked and Kyo bit back a panicked whimper, raising his hands slowly. The man stepped forward, grabbing him by the wrist and dragging him down off of the railing. He landed with a graceless stagger, jerking away immediately to press his back against the rail, trying to get as far away from the dog as possible as it stepped toward him, it’s growl only getting louder now that Kyo was next to its handler.

 _“I’m sorry! Whatever I did, I’m sorry, please don’t let it bite me!”_ he whispered frantically, shoulders hunched defensively up under his ears, the man’s crushing grip on his wrist the only thing keeping him standing. He wasn’t even sure what he was sorry for, just wanting whatever was happening to end before he was shot, mauled, or both.

“What’s your business out here, boy?” the man demanded. “These are private gardens; who let you in here?”

_“M-Master Kaoru! H-he brought me out here for lunch, and-… I just-…”_

“‘Master…’?” The man’s eyes widened slightly, his eyes flicking down to register the shine of silver and red at Kyo’s throat. “Oh… oh gods...” He released the blonde’s wrist as if burned, dropping into a startlingly low bow. “P-Please forgive me, sir! I didn’t know-… I didn’t realize-… please sir, forgive my disrespect!”

Kyo only stared, utterly confused. The man had gone, in the space of a heartbeat, from threatening him to… subjugation? Just from looking at his collar? Even the dog, seeing its master bowing, settled down entirely, sitting with a tongue-lolling pant. It made no sense at all, and Kyo could only gape at the man. He heard a sharp whistle across the gardens and his head snapped around, seeing Kaoru beckoning to him. Looking back at the still-bent man, he backed away slowly, hands clutched nervously at his chest, before turning and running back to his captor.

_‘What the fuck was that?!’_

_‘He looked like he thought **I** was going to kill **him!** ’_

_‘Why would anyone here… be afraid of me?’_

It was a question he would not be getting answers to any time soon; something for him to wonder at on his own time when his keeper wasn't around, demanding his attention. As soon as he returned, Kaoru pointed to the cushion on the ground next to his own seat on the bench, and Kyo lowered himself onto it obligingly as lunch began.

Though he was far more lucid and not nearly so desperate for this meal, he never did stop to wonder why Kaoru insisted on feeding him by hand. He simply accepted it as a minor degradation in comparison to everything else, never realizing that every bite was acclimating his destabilized mind and body to Kaoru’s touch. His obedience in these moments was based not on threats, but on the promise of reward; the positive reinforcement slowly changing him on a subconscious level, reaching a place that fear never could just as punishments had reached a place in him that kindness never could, both working to reshape him to his master's will.

“Mph… bathroom,” Kaoru grunted once most of the food was gone and everyone had settled into grazing as they conversed, standing with a languid stretch. He put one hand on Kyo’s head, smoothing it over his hair once in passing, “Stay here.”

Kyo put his hands on the table, rising a little on his knees to peer over the edge, watching his keeper walk back down the path towards the mansion.

Toshiya brightened on seeing dark gold eyes coming up over the opposite edge of the table, leaning forward to look down at the smaller man. “Hey, you! I almost forgot you were down there.”

Kyo blinked at him, sitting back a bit.

“Oh yeah.” Die leaned over as well. “You’re so quiet.”

Shinya rolled his eyes a little at his friends, and spared a small smile for Kyo. “Did you need something?”

Kyo thought about that. He shifted uncomfortably, looking unsure as he remembered his thoughts from earlier. _“I’m okay… I just…”_

Toshiya smiled encouragingly at him. “Yeah? What’s up?”

Kyo hunched his shoulders a little. _“You said I’m supposed to keep him happy?”_

“Who, Kao? Yeah, that’s your job now. You’re his companion.”

_“But… what does that **mean**?”_

The other three exchanged quizzical looks. Die had nothing to offer; he probably knew Kaoru best, but served him in an entirely different way, always had and always would. Shinya was most experienced in the matter, but least comfortable with talking about it, no matter how much he wanted to help Kyo learn to accept his new life. Toshiya was the only one more or less in his comfort zone, since pleasing hard-to-please people and teaching others to do the same was essentially his job.

The blue-haired man’s lips spread in a warm smile. “You’re too sweet for words, you know that? Think of it... as a most profound, one-sided love. His happiness is your happiness; his pain is your pain. Whatever he wants, whatever he needs, if it is within your power to provide it, you will do so without hesitation, and in return, he’ll give you anything you could ever want.”

“It’s like a specialized form of courtesan,” Shinya offered carefully. “You’re more than just a bed-warmer. Kaoru has a very stressful job; your job is to help him bleed off that stress in whatever manner benefits him most, anything from sex to tea service to simple conversation. Later on, you’ll also accompany him to functions where other business contacts will be assembled, as a status symbol.”

Kyo frowned a little, looking down thoughtfully. On the one hand, that gave him a bit of hope; he hadn’t been reduced entirely to a sex toy, at least. But at the same time, Kaoru was damned difficult to read sometimes, how could he be expected to know what the man needed? And conversation? The closest thing they’d had to a conversation was Kyo calling Kaoru a devil, and though that had ended better than it could have, it still left him wondering-

_“How can I do all that when I don’t know anything about him?”_

There was a long moment of silence as the other three considered the question.

Die was the first to speak up. “Kaoru… is from Hyougo. He’s… twenty-eight, and he loves video games. Mostly RPGs and first-person shooters.”

Kyo blinked, head cocked.

“He likes Gundam series,” Shinya added. “And sports, especially soccer.”

Toshiya scratched his chin thoughtfully. “His birthday’s February 17th.”

Die and Toshiya laughed a little, getting into it.

“He can drink forever.”

“He’s stubborn as hell. He’d cut of his own nose just to spite his face!”

“He hates shellfish.”

“He loves hamburgers – American-style!”

“He has a degree in biochemistry.”

“His favorite color is purple!”

“I thought it was black?”

“…Purple and black!”

“He’s really picky about how things look-"

"But he forgets to pick up after himself most of the time."

"He can be a bit of a perfectionist, so he holds himself and everyone around him to high standards,” Shinya said with a fond smile. “But he’s really good at reading people’s potential and pushing them toward it. Even if they don’t realize it at first…”

Toshiya and Die both looked at the younger man then, the same fond smiles crossing their own faces as their gazes turned inward. Kyo was somewhat stunned in that moment, sensing the pure devotion and… gratitude? that they all held for his master. He couldn’t imagine what the man possibly could have done to endear himself so much to them, but it must have been profound. Somehow it only served to deify the man more in his mind, because if the hardened glints in their eyes were any indication, Kaoru’s three friends were anything but weak-willed.

Toshiya recovered first, running his fingers through the short, black sections of his hair. “Eh… he’s really into music, local and American. Rock mostly.”

Die grinned a bit, propping his chin on one hand. “And zombies. Fucker loves zombies.”

"Haha, yeah he does!"

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

_‘Day zero… Saturday, October 9 th… Kisaki sold me to pay off a debt.’_

The sharp edge of a thumbnail rubbed steadily against the wall, unhurriedly digging a centimeter-tall scratch in the white paint just above the floor. Kyo watched his hand desolately as it moved, careful to keep his hash mark small and discrete. Tucked so subtly into the corner of his cell that he slept in, the little mark would be all-but invisible to anyone not looking for it. Kyo prayed Kaoru never found it.

_‘Day one… Sunday… I woke up here… and spent the day alone.’_

The nail slid over just a bit, scratching a second line into the unadulterated white.

_‘Day two… Monday… I met Mas-… I met Kaoru, and He told me why I’m here. I made a mess, swore at Him, **pushed** Him… He was so angry…’_

Dark gold eyes flittered across the wall, settling on the small hole where a bullet had passed bare centimeters from his skull. Kyo shuddered and refocused on his marks.

_‘He could have killed me. Who would have stopped Him? But I apologized, and He forgave me. He let me take a shower, that night, and bandaged my wounds.’_

Another slight shift of the hand, and a third line was started.

_‘Day three, Tuesday. …What happened? I think… I fell asleep for a while… But when Kaoru came back, He took me to the tea room for dinner for the first time.’_

Kyo had a love-hate relationship with that room. It was tranquil, strikingly beautiful, and he got to eat every time he was in there. But it was also the place where-

_‘That was… the first time He fucked me. He didn’t have to prepare me… didn’t have to make sure I enjoyed it… but He did.’_

Another line.

_‘Day four, Wednesday…’_

Kyo’s hand shook a bit at the memory, his teeth digging into his lower lip.

_‘I… I went crazy. **Attacked** Him - screamed at Him, made Him **bleed**. He was angrier than I've ever seen Him, but He didn’t kill me then… even though I know He thought about it. Instead-’_

Another line, this one a touch deeper than the others.

_‘Day five, Thursday… Time Out.’_

Two simple words, but they never failed to twist his stomach into knots, to make his heart pound and his lungs go tight in his chest.

_‘Day six, Friday… Time Out until He came back from work… He let me apologize, even though He was still mad… and He forgave me.’_

The blonde’s unoccupied hand smoothed absently over the thick blue silk of the hakama he’d been given for the day, gratitude tickling at the back of his mind.

_‘He even started letting me wear clothes, that day.’_

_‘Day seven, Saturday, He let me go outside! He let me explore the gardens without the leash on… it was so beautiful… That was the first time I got lunch **and** dinner in the same day… but the last time I got to leave His quarters.’_

A furtive glance at the clock on the wall. Only eleven in the morning; Kaoru wasn’t due back for hours yet. Still, he kept his ears straining, made nervous by even this tiny rebellion. He needed it though, needed some way to keep track of the days.

_‘Day eight, Sunday… He was hungover from spending the night out with His friends. But still, He took me to the tea room for a late breakfast… I thought He was going to be angry, when I refused the pomegranate seeds.’_

Scratching his neck absently – his collar itched all the time anymore, the leather edges grating on sensitive skin – Kyo cocked his head. It was a bit superstitious of him, maybe, but he couldn’t make himself open his mouth for those seeds. Not from Kaoru.

_‘Day nine, Monday… He came for me after His shower, took me to the tea room for breakfast… Alone all day while He was at work. Dinner in the tea room, shower, shaving. The first day that nothing new happened…’_

_‘Day ten, Tuesday. Same as Monday... am I becoming complacent?’_

_‘So Today is… Wednesday, October 20 th? It’s only been eleven days… gods…’_

It felt like so much longer. The hours that Kaoru spent at work were devastating for Kyo; they seemed to stretch on forever, with only the clock to occupy him, and he often found himself counting down the minutes until four, when his master would return to give him his dinner. But even then, he’d be back in his cell by six while Kaoru left for his own meal, taken out only once more for his shower, then he’d be alone again until breakfast. Kyo sighed, crossing his arms over his knees and resting his chin on them as he stared at his tally marks.

_‘Knowing what to expect makes it easier, at least.’_

_‘Just… doing what He tells me to do, going where He tells me to go…’_

_‘Whatever keeps Him happy, so He keeps being kind to me…’_

_‘He… takes better care of me than He has to.’_

The sounds of doors slamming open and rapid footsteps made Kyo jump a little and tense up. What was happening now? It was too early for Kaoru to be back, and those didn’t sound like his steps. Kaoru always moved at a steady pace, confident and purposeful, but unhurried. And he certainly never slammed doors.

It was a disconcerting change from the routine that Kyo took solace in.

There was some fumbling at the door to Kyo’s cell; the handle rattling, a muffled voice cursing. A frustrated growl and the sudden crash of the wooden panel being kicked made the blonde jump. More fumbling and the door came open, swinging out to reveal a somewhat flustered Die. Kyo was deeply unsettled by the man’s presence in his cell; he’d only ever seen Kaoru in his room thus far, and he felt abruptly… cornered.

“Oh good, you _are_ in here. Come on, we’re taking a little trip downstairs,” Die called, glancing over his shoulder while waving one hand.

Kyo didn’t so much as blink, let alone oblige the taller man’s request. Really, he had no idea how he was supposed to act around the redhead; it was difficult to determine whether he’d be punished for obeying someone other than his master, or for disobeying one of his master’s close friends. He tried to sort through what he knew for some kind of hint.

Kaoru hadn’t minded when his friends had given him food before, although they’d very pointedly handed him things, rather than feeding him the way his master did. And Die was apparently welcome in Kaoru’s quarters, if the guards posted outside had let him in, and apparently knew the access codes to Kyo’s cell, even if he had trouble remembering them. Would Kaoru leave the man unrestricted access to Kyo, if he didn’t want him to have it? Somehow, Kyo didn’t think so. He was deeply under the impression that Kaoru was very deliberate in all that he did and said, just shy of being all-seeing, all-knowing.

Die beckoned again impatiently. “Come on, come on!”

_‘He left me alone with them before…’_

_‘And… they were so nice to me…’_

Chewing his lip, Kyo hesitantly stood and moved over to the redhead. Once he was in reach, Die grabbed the younger man’s hand. “Alright, let’s go!”

The taller man set a rapid pace through the halls of Kaoru’s quarters and out into the mansion proper, his long legs eating up ground with grace and purpose as Kyo scrambled to keep up. The guards stationed outside the master suite looked confused to see the blonde, but held their silence, heads bobbing respectfully in Die’s direction. Kyo tried his best to keep close behind the older man as they navigated the busy corridors of Kaoru’s home, uncomfortable under the too-curious stares of people they passed.

“Oh man, I’m so glad I found you, kid,” Die shot back at him, flashing that dazzling grin over one shoulder. “Kaoru is just _blind_ -fucking-pissed today, and we can’t get him calmed back down. It’s not even lunchtime and he already made Totchi cry.”

Kyo paled, eyes going wide.

_‘Angry…?’_

_‘Kaoru is **angry** **?!** ’_

_‘Why do they need me? What did I do?!’_

_‘Does He know about my calendar? How can He know?!’_

Just the thought of his master’s rage sent the blonde spiraling into a dizzy panic. So much for Die being nice; the man was going to throw him into the damn dragon’s lair for another punishment! Kyo shook his head frantically, digging his bare heels into the floor and trying to claw Die’s hand off of his own. He had to go back to his cell, back to his corner to hide and be safe until Kaoru wasn’t angry anymore. Die held fast, however, stopping to brace himself against the smaller man’s frantic pulling.

“Hey, whoa, what the hell? What’s wrong with you?” the redhead demanded.

Kyo bared his teeth in a terrified grimace, scrambling desperately against the hold as a whimper escaped him. _“Let me go, you have to let me go! I’ve been good, He can’t be mad at me; I swear I’ve been **good**! Let me go, please, you have to let me go!”_

“What? What are you-… Oh… Oh! Oh, no, little brother, no.” Die turned the rest of the way around, putting his free hand against Kyo’s cheek gently. “It’s okay, he’s not mad at _you_. You’re not in any trouble at all, I promise.”

The blonde still cringed away, body wound tight with panic, but his struggles started to slow a bit.

_“What?”_

_‘Not in…?’_

_“But then why-”_

“We can’t calm him down, but you can. We just thought since you’re kind of new to this that you might not know what to do, so I’m taking you down to see Toshiya. He’s going to help you cheer Kao up.”

Gradually, under Die’s coaxing voice and the hand stroking soothingly over his cheek, Kyo’s pulling slowed to a stop. He panted a little and swallowed, trying to take reassurance from the honesty on the older man’s face, praying that Die wasn’t just a phenomenal liar. Feet rooted firmly in place, neither fighting nor complying, Kyo met the redhead’s eyes with a pleading glance, searching.

_“…I’m not… going to be punished?”_

Die gave his sweetest heartbreaker smile and shook his head. “Not at all. We just need your help making the boss happy again. You’re the only one who can right now.”

_-“You’re in a position of unique power. As his companion, you have more influence over Kaoru than anyone else, even us.”-_

He’d almost forgotten about that. Kyo hadn’t believed Shinya in the least when the man had told him that he had any sort of power over Kaoru, but from what Die was saying, it seemed that they believed it. So far, simple obedience had been enough to keep his master in a relatively good mood… now apparently he was expected to take action to reverse a bad one.

_‘Either way… He’s already angry.’_

_‘They think I can fix it?’_

_‘…They… they can **help** me fix it…?’_

Kyo couldn’t handle the thought of Kaoru being angry, even if it wasn’t directed specifically at him, but it was true that he didn't really know what to do about it. Pushing down the fear rising in his throat, he nodded and moved his feet again, allowing Die to guide him once more. The redhead patted his back reassuringly once before whipping around and resuming his rapid pace down the halls, checking his watch with a soft curse. Kyo hurried after him quietly – trying to keep track of where they were going in the maze of hallways, and failing miserably – before something occurred to him.

_‘Wait… did he just…?’_

_“Die?”_ he called out softly.

“Yeah?”

_“Did you… why did you call me ‘brother’ just now?”_

Die chucked a bit. “Well… because you are. No matter how you came to be here, you’re part of the family now, you know? We all take care of one another, for life, no matter what… and that includes you.”

Kyo stared up at him. “ _'For life'? But when Kaoru gets bored with me…”_

Die shook his head. “Whether or not you stay on as Kao’s companion, you’re one of us now, and that can never change. If he ever decides to turn you out, we’ll still make sure you’re always taken care of – that you have a home, food, a job. We watch out for our own. Always.”

Kyo settled into a stunned silence. If what Die said was true – and the conviction in his voice made him very difficult to doubt – then even if Kaoru released him from servitude as his pet, he would always be irrevocably bound to these people. Kyo would never truly be free again. It should have been a crushing realization, and yet…

_‘…family?’_

He hadn’t been part of a family for over six years now. The closest thing he’d ever had to a brother had been Kisaki, and he’d always known on some level that his roommate could only commit so much to him. He’d had no assurance of support, no safety nets should he ever lose his footing in life, and to be promised that kind of devotion with so much sincerity… Too much new information, too many emotions all at once were making him so dizzy that he didn’t realize right away when they reached their destination.

“Totchi, I got him!” Die called out, tugging Kyo around to push the blonde through the narrow doorway ahead of himself. “Is Shinya-”

“Right here,” the auburn-haired man interjected, sidling into the room behind Die.

Kyo took in a lot of different things at once. First, he noticed that the room they’d come to looked an awful lot like the dressing area he and the other dancers had shared at his former job. The only difference was that everything here – from the vanity stations to the showers to the racks of costumes and fancy clothing – was infinitely higher quality than anything they’d had at the seedy little gay bar. Second, he was astounded by the sight of his training collar’s remote, clutched like a hard-won prize in one of Shinya’s long-fingered hands. The device was deposited on one of the vanity counters; apparently valuable but overall innocuous to the others, deeply unsettling for the blonde.

Third – and perhaps most startling for Kyo – was to see that Toshiya, waiting for them on a stool in front of one of the vanities, looked absolutely miserable. The blue-haired man’s usual smile had been replaced by a thoroughly dejected pout, his once-bright eyes bloodshot and ringed with streaked and smudged make up. He couldn’t help but wonder what Kaoru could have possibly done or said to cause the high-spirited man such distress.

“Alright,” Toshiya sighed, sniffling a little before standing and putting on his most resolute face. “Let’s do this thing.”

“Just tell us what you need, Toshiya,” Shinya said, a bit anxious.

“You and Die just go upstairs and keep that cranky bastard busy, I don’t care how. He can _not_ go back to his quarters until four o’clock, or this won’t work.” One long finger stretched out to point out Kyo. “And as for you…”

Kyo tensed a little, but raised his chin determinedly. Whatever it was he was expected to do, he could handle it. He had to. Anything was better than Kaoru’s anger.

Toshiya grinned – perhaps a bit wildly – to see the resolve in the smaller man’s eyes. “You just let me do my job, and do exactly as I tell you, and we can’t fail.”

Die clapped one hand on Kyo’s shoulder as he followed Shinya out of the room, offering him one last encouraging smile. “Good luck, little brother.”

 

 


	16. Chapter 16

Men and women of the underworld swarmed the halls, confident, comfortable, and unhurried in the work to which they were deeply accustomed. Some wore identical black suits, finely tailored and cut in such a way that the arsenals tucked beneath the outer layers were all-but invisible. These individuals had hard eyes and resolutely squared shoulders, secure in the knowledge that they had both the will and the means to protect their home and their family from any threat. Others were strikingly – almost _painfully_ – beautiful specimens of humanity, dressed in only the most exquisite fashions, jewelry and discrete make-up flawlessly applied to accent their inherent perfection. These people were bold, welcoming onlookers the way spiders welcome insects to their webs, comfortable with the use of their remarkable looks and skilled bodies as a means of getting what they wanted from the rich and powerful.

Every one of these people – criminals all, poised and stoic, hardened by lives wrought with constant dangers both manifest and unseen – averted their eyes and wilted pitifully against the walls, clearing a wide path for the raging thunderstorm known as Kaoru Niikura to pass through. He didn’t spare them so much as half a glance. Tens of millions of yen had to be lost to get him into such an insidious fury, and a couple dozen men had to die. Most of them were accidental deaths – a result of the same careless greed that had lost the money – but some of them were by Kaoru’s orders, and two were by his own hand. Which was a mess that had damned well better be cleaned up out of his office before he got back tomorrow.

He was seething as he passed through the doorway into his suite, shutting and locking it behind himself with a decisive flick of the wrist. He wanted nothing more to do with anyone tonight; unless the mansion was burning down and security was coming to drag him out of the flames, he was fairly certain he would just shoot the next person that spoke to him. With a deep sigh, he closed his eyes and leaned back against the door, taking a moment to savor the peace and silence of his quarters.

“ **For some reason, my heart has rejected him… his form is changing – far away, but all too close…** ”

Kaoru’s eyes snapped open, brows drawing in over them in a deep scowl. Someone – a deep, strong voice that he didn’t recognize – was in his quarters, without his permission… _singing?_ He was in absolutely no mood for any such bullshit. Pushing himself off the door, he went to investigate.

“ **Should I wear a mask? So I can hide my face, drawn with tension, when I’m with him… My heart – lost in my body – will someday leave me…** ”

The voice was incredibly smooth, singing at a sweet, slow cadence, but he wasn't in a mindset to appreciate it in the least. As he passed through the hallway, he realized that it was coming from his bedroom. A territorial growl escaped him. Face pulled tight into a vicious glare, Kaoru pushed the door open-

“ **I’ll bloom as the poison flower… and become the flower that blooms again.** ”

-and suddenly his temper just didn’t seem worth holding on to.

Kyo was out of his cell, watching him now with bright honey eyes, but it wasn’t the same Kyo he’d left that morning. His hair – freshly bleached to a rich sun-gold from root to tip – had been cut, cropped short above his left eye and hanging longer to obscure the right half of his face in feathery spikes. He’d been given jewelry; a dozen earrings, a nose stud, lip rings flashing subtly in the warm light of the soon-to-be-setting sun. A touch of dusky eyeshadow stained his upper eyelids, and subtle gloss traced across his lips. His eyebrows had been plucked into delicate arches, and from what Kaoru could see, the baby-fine dusting of body hair that he had, had been waxed off.

It was nothing dramatic. A handful of little details to enhance the blonde’s appearance without really changing it, but the effect was striking. Even his pose was simple, but deeply enticing: spread supine on Kaoru’s bed with one leg bent modestly, moving dreamily to the beat of the song only he could still hear. Laying that way, wearing only one of Kaoru’s white dress shirts – hardly buttoned, sleeves stretching down over his hands, the bottom hem reaching just barely far enough to cover his hips – the blonde became a perfect picture of sin-soaked innocence.

Kaoru was, like most men, plenty excited by the sight of a beautiful person in the nude. But for him, what caught and kept his attention was a partner stripped down to all _but_ the last stitch. The demure obscuration of only the most important parts turned the simply sexy into the maddeningly seductive, and coming from his usually-reticent pet, the tease was almost unbearably effective. Then the blonde was moving with mercurial grace to kneel with his ankles on either side of his hips, hands pressing against the covers between his knees, and the shirt slipped off to one side. It was a modest covering of the genitals with a brazen display of so much leg and a coy glimpse of one shoulder – an undeniably masculine body in a decidedly feminine pose – and the juxtaposition was delicious.

A soft, pink tongue peeked out to trace languidly over a full lip, and Kaoru forgot what he’d been angry about, or that he’d even been angry at all.

Shutting the door behind him, Kaoru moved over to the bed, and his eyes caught on two things. The first was that, with Kyo kneeling the way his was now, the shirt hitched up just enough to reveal the lower curve of his ass, nudged up by the gentle swell of the younger man’s hips. For a moment, he couldn’t bring himself to look away from that little peek of less-than-innocent flesh. The second thing he noticed was that Kyo’s eyes were unusually glossy, his pupils flared out to leave only a narrow band of dark gold around the edges. Odd, considering it wasn’t all that dark in the bedroom.

One of Kyo’s hands reached up, catching Kaoru’s tie and tugging it free of the vest it had been tucked into, then winding it slowly around his fist, apparently entranced by the crimson silk. Dilated pupils, flushed cheeks, tactile arousal, the noticeable absence of customary apprehension, and what was obviously Toshiya’s hand in getting the boy primped up… Understanding dawned on Kaoru, followed by amusement.

“Kyo,” Kaoru murmured, “Does the word ‘ _Methylenedioxymethamphetamine’_ mean anything to you, by chance?”

Kyo cocked his head, thoughtfully. “Hmm…”

“Shit!” Kaoru swore, eyes widening just slightly as the younger man yanked suddenly, dragging him down by his tie. The world spun and he found himself on his back, legs dangling over the edge of the bed, with Kyo straddling his hips. He was tempted to smack the younger man – a touch of temper flaring at his pet’s boldness – but a larger part of him was fascinated by this new attitude, curious to see where it would lead.

“Nope.”

Inside his own mind, Kyo was absolutely soaring. Everything was so much _more_ than it used to be and he reveled in a pervasive sensory overload. In the time since Toshiya had left him, he’d more or less forgotten why he’d accepted that little purple pill, why it had been so important that he be relaxed. Something about Kaoru having a bad day? The thought had upset him, he remembered; he didn’t want Kaoru to be unhappy. While waiting for his master, though, he’d become distracted, luxuriating in the sound of his own voice singing and the slide of the soft blankets against his now-hairless legs.

Now, Kaoru’s tie was so much redder, so much smoother than he’d expected, and he decided he liked how it looked and felt around his hand. The vast majority of his fear for his captor had been drowned out by an undefined euphoria and a sudden need for company and contact. He wanted to be closer to Kaoru – wanted to see and hear and smell and taste and feel more of the man underneath him – and somehow, that desire didn’t perturb him in the slightest. Nor did the heat slowly pooling in his lower belly, though it certainly had his attention, and he knew what he wanted to do with his new-found energy.

Grinding his hips down against Kaoru’s, taking in the man’s ever-impeccable appearance, a thought occurred to Kyo. His face lit up with an intoxicated flush as he leaned down to purr in the other’s ear, “Ne, Master Kaoru… can I tell you a secret?”

Kaoru’s eyelids fluttered a bit and he swallowed a groan. _Gods_ but his pet had a sweet voice when it wasn’t pitched in fear; low and rich with tacit sin. The sound of it traveled straight down his spine and coiled in his groin, making him wonder hazily why he’d ever put the training collar on the younger man.

“Yes, you may.”

“I want to fuck up your vest.”

Then the lips against his ear were gone, and Kaoru was left with a heady little shiver of anticipation for the more sensual side that his pet had been hiding. Clever hands fussed at his pants, and then he felt himself exposed to cooler air and took in a slow breath, staring at the ceiling as he relaxed into his comforter. What he expected was the same caliber of blowjob that his pet had given him before; hard and fast and mind-blowing in the speed and intensity with which the blonde could get him off. So when all he felt was a hot breath ghosting over his erection, followed by the playful flick of a tongue, he was caught again off his guard.

Lifting his head, Kaoru watched, entranced, as his drug-addled pet wrapped full lips around the head of his cock, sucking once then releasing it with a soft _~pop~_ only to swirl his tongue around the tip, wringing a low moan out of him. Taking his sweet time mouthing here, licking there, the faintest scrape of teeth over a sensitive ridge and the slick slide of the tip of a tongue over his scrotum; it was difficult to tell if Kyo was teasing him on purpose, or just playing around because he was fascinated by the different tastes and textures in his mouth. Whatever his purpose, he was doing everything Kaoru wanted, but not nearly enough of it. Kyo remembered all of his most sensitive places and lavished attention on them, only enough to drive him crazy, never baring down and finishing him off. More than once, he came close – so _damn_ close – to release, but Kyo pulled back every time, letting him settle back down before coming in to tease him again.

“Fucking Christ…” Kaoru breathed.

After a while, he groaned, impatient, and reached for the younger man’s hair, intent on that mouth and what he knew it could do to him if only the capricious little bastard would just get around to it. Gold eyes flashed mischievously, a long-fingered hand coming up and clamping down around a tattooed wrist with surprising strength. With one last, maddening drag of his tongue from the base of Kaoru’s cock to the tip, dipping to gather the precum collecting with a needy little sound, Kyo climbed back onto his master’s lap. An open-mouthed kiss was placed on the underside of Kaoru’s wrist – an apologetic request for patience as much as it was a simple tactile indulgence.

“Kyo…” a warning tone.

Kyo was painfully hard without ever having been touched, an amphetamine-induced feeling of intimacy colliding powerfully with the intensification of his senses. Every brush of flesh and fabric against his skin, every gasp and moan that Kaoru uttered, every slide of his tongue over his own bottom lip, tasting Kaoru there, seemed to register directly in his groin. But as far gone as he was, one thought still remained at the forefront of his hazy mind; that he had to make Kaoru happy.

So, tucking his wrists behind his head, he did what had never failed to drive all of his previous partners crazy; rolling, undulating, twisting his hips the way that he did on stage in the most intimate of dances. He moved to a beat only he could hear, lost in his own sensual motions and the rapid heartbeat of the man beneath him that he could feel in the overheated press where their bodies met. Kaoru didn’t know what was more satisfying; watching the glorious liquid movements of his pet’s body, or the feel of the younger man grinding their bare erections against one another. Either way he was reduced to self-indulgent hissing and groaning in a short order, rocking his own hips up as he dug his fingers into Kyo’s thighs.

Then the blonde was lifting himself up on his knees, one long-fingered hand wrapped delicately around Kaoru’s length, guiding it into himself as he lowered his hips. Kaoru started to protest – however high his pet might be, fucking with no preparation wouldn’t be enjoyable for either of them – but his commands caught on his tongue before he could voice them, an unintelligible moan passing through instead. Kyo’s body welcomed him eagerly, slick and elastic, taking him in to the hilt in one slow push from above as the blonde threw his head back into a throaty groan. The thought that the blonde had actually prepared himself while waiting for Kaoru to return from work, combined with the twisting roll of the younger man’s hips, proved to be too much and he finally just lost it.

The room bucked and spun and a breathless laugh passed Kyo’s lips as all the colors and lights around him swirled around one another for a moment. When things stabilized again, Kaoru was over him, hands braced on either side of his head, staring down at him with wild, lust-blackened eyes. Thin hips slammed against his own and he wound his legs around them, meeting every thrust with a push of his own, driving his master ever deeper inside of himself, reveling in the feeling of the heat and friction inside him. It stung a bit – he’d prepped himself almost half an hour ago, and Kaoru was being less than gentle – but that only served to heighten the ecstasy he was drowning in.

Kyo forgot that he wasn’t supposed to be noisy, falling into a wild crescendo of groaning screams and rough panting that bounced off the walls and echoed all around them. Kaoru’s own grunts and moans underscored his cries and he reached up, tangling one hand in the back of the older man’s hair as the other dug into a straining shoulder. He pressed himself up against his master, muffled his voice in the pressed white collar of the other’s shirt, and the rasp of a finely-tailored vest over his erection was the last bit of stimulation that he needed. With a ragged scream of what may have been Kaoru’s name, Kyo reached his peak, cum spurting wildly into the narrow space between them.

Kaoru wasn’t far behind him. The teasing he’d undergone, the hand in his hair, the overheated muscles clamping down in shuddering waves around his length, the deeply indulgent sounds his pet was making; it all served to render him undone. A few more thrusts in a powerful, broken rhythm and he arched into his own release with a groan. This was his favorite moment, the reason he so carefully screened and tested all of his potential lovers, making sure they were clean before ever touching them, because he never wanted a latex shield between them. He loved the knowledge that the smaller man beneath him was now filled with his seed, marking him as his property, his prize. In a handful of shaking heartbeats, he was spent. Pulling out with a vulgar, wet sound, wringing a soft squeak out of his pet, he let himself fall back onto the bed and worked to remember how to breathe.

All of Kyo’s frenetic, over-stimulated energy had bled from him, leaving him completely drained of all but the lingering craving for human contact. He rolled with some effort, tucking himself against his master’s side, and nearly purred when one of the older man’s hands came up lazily to run through his hair. As sleep fought to pull him down, his eyes caught on something, and a victorious little thrill washed through him. Languidly, he ran one hand over Kaoru’s belly, smearing his own cum into the expensive fabric of the man’s vest before drifting off.

_‘I’ll bloom as the poison flower… and become…’_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song described above ([Jealous -reverse-](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpsZQgnj_JU)) is intellectual property of Dir en grey. I do not own any rights to it, or profit from its use.


	17. Chapter 17

Kyo rose gradually to consciousness, slowly taking in his surroundings piece-by-piece as his senses hazily reestablished themselves. First: a heartbeat against his ear – slow and steady, his own pulse obediently mimicking it with a calm stability that it had not possessed in weeks. Second: darkness on the other side of fluttering eyelids – not the false dusk provided by the light in his cell, or the endless void of Time Out, but simple, natural nighttime pouring in through a window. Third: warmth all around him – nestled on top of a plush comforter, his own body fitted close against another. He realized that he was awake when he registered a handful of minor discomforts – the itch of dried cum down the backs of his thighs, a dull ache in his lower back, an insistent dryness in his throat – but he didn’t so much as twitch in response.

The heavy smell of sweat and sex was laced with now-familiar cologne, and an odd sort of introspective mood settled over him, feeling distinctly unlike himself. His mind was clearer and more open than it ever had been, but it almost seemed to be detached somehow; a global disconnect between the various facets of his psyche. Absently, he wondered at the implications of the day’s events.

_‘I… slept with Him again… but willingly…’_

_‘I… fuck, I **wanted** it…’_

_‘I wanted to have sex with Him…’_

It hadn’t just been an acceptance of the man’s intentions, as their first coupling had been; he’d honestly wanted to be close to Kaoru, to feel the man’s heat inside of him. He’d been turned on just by the sensation of giving the man head, had cum all over the both of them without any manipulation on his master’s part. It would be easy to blame the little purple pill Toshiya had given him – the one that he’d been told would ‘help him relax’ – but he wasn’t familiar enough with the drug to be able to afford himself that excuse. Even reasoning that he only did it to make his master happy felt like at least a half-lie, because he knew that his body had been singing for contact. He’d had sex with Kaoru of his own volition, and part of him was sickened and ashamed for it.

_‘But… it all went the way I wanted it to.’_

_‘Even when He tried to push me, I stopped Him…’_

_‘I made Him feel what I wanted Him to feel.’_

Another, much larger part of him reveled in the knowledge that, for just that brief window, not only had he felt something other than terror, but he had been in control. He had stripped his master of all of his anger, all of his composure, all of his capacity for rational thought, and Kaoru had allowed it. Kyo hadn’t simply gone to his knees and begged for his master’s happiness with a silent, clever tongue, praying his submission and hard-won skills would be enough. He had stolen Kaoru’s rage, robbed him the way he’d been robbed of so damn much – had taken a god and reduced him to a mere mortal, if only for a short while – and it was a heady feeling after so long feeling so powerless.

_‘I can’t believe I-… with Him…’_

_‘A god or a devil… a god **and** a devil…’_

_‘Ruthless, self-serving, cold…’_

Underneath the twisting conflict of shame and satisfaction, another battle was taking place in the quieter corners of Kyo’s mind. When all of this had started, he had truly believed with every bit of his soul that Kaoru was too cruel, too blatantly and undeniably evil to even be human. That his master was a devil in a man’s skin, incapable of sympathy or compassion, taking pleasure only in the suffering of others, and Kyo was simply the most recent to fall prey to his malicious desires. That mindset had allowed Kyo to hate the man with an unadulterated passion unlike anything he’d ever experienced, but it also left him wallowing in abject terror every waking moment.

_‘But how… how could cruelty earn Him such devotion?’_

_‘How can they look at us… and see nothing wrong, if He’s so bad?’_

_‘How… how can others want to be where I am, if He’s truly evil?’_

The scattered fragments of his mind were settling on a belief that put less strain on his heart, a less painful explanation; that maybe Kaoru wasn’t evil. Kaoru only ever struck him in response to being stricken. Kaoru fed him, too – good food of decidedly high quality, the likes of which he would have considered fare for special occasions. Kaoru gave him clothing and warm showers and his own little room for a safe haven, took him outside for picnics in the sunlit gardens. If Kaoru was evil, he wouldn’t do those things, would he? Kyo relied on the older man for survival, wholly and absolutely, and Kaoru seemed almost happy to rise to the occasion.

_‘Almost as if…’_

_‘As if He… cares…?’_

_‘But how could He…’_

Kyo felt a chilly tickle on his cheeks, and knew that confused, frustrated tears were falling unrestrained from half-open eyes. He allowed the stream to continue, but lacked the will to succumb to the urge to truly cry, his breath remaining steady, his body lax. He was in a strange place, mentally; the chemical wings he’d been flying so high on had melted away, but he hadn’t quite crashed down to earth yet. Lucid, but light, as if in freefall, and somehow the fact that Kaoru hadn’t moved from where they’d fallen over an hour ago resonated deep in him.

_‘He’s…’_

_‘…warm…’_

Kyo never fully realized the changes taking place inside himself. He never noticed the constant shifting and bending his mind was undergoing in order to conform itself to his new life without breaking completely. The shift was so gradual – from obedience based solely on fear, to seeking understanding to avoid punishment, to actively working toward pleasuring his master in the hope of more kindness – that he never noticed the difference in his own behavior beyond the understanding that his life was better for it. His denial had been firmly contradicted, his anger brutally beaten down. Any attempts he could have made at bargaining were ignored, and he found himself now trapped between depression and acceptance, drifting steadily toward the latter because the former simply hurt too much. He simply latched onto every little thing his captor did that could be taken as compassion, and clung to them to lessen the unbearable strain on his soul.

The body he was resting on shifted, startling him a little, and he heard the unmistakable click and whispered hiss of a lighter being brought to bear on a cigarette. There was a slow exhale of smoke, and Kyo found himself breathing it in deeply. It tasted of nicotine and Kaoru, and even as his eyes slid shut in indulgence, the blonde was dismayed by how much he needed both. Equally vicious poisons that convinced him he needed them to live, to be happy, to experience anything other than abject misery even when he knew that they would only destroy him slowly from the inside out.

_‘What was I singing about, before?’_

_‘It seemed so important then…’_

_‘Something about poison, and… blooming?’_

Lulled by fatigue, still half-buried in his own thoughts, Kyo found himself calling out softly, “Master?”

That word had once stuck to his tongue like bitter pitch, turning his stomach and fueling his indignant fury. It was getting easier to say.

“Mn?”

“Why…” Was it even worth knowing, really? When knowing wouldn’t – _couldn’t_ – change anything? “Why did you choose me?”

“‘Choose’?” Kaoru wondered, his voice husky with sleep and satiation. “I didn’t ‘choose’ you. I accepted you as payment because you were all Matsuura had to offer.”

Kyo’s eyes closed again and the sleepy tears that had very nearly dried up began anew, the bond between his consciousness and his despair reconnected abruptly. Kaoru hadn’t asked for him. _Kisaki_ had chosen Kyo – of all of his friends, of anyone he could have tricked into following him into the back room of that club – as his sacrifice, and Kaoru had only accepted him because he would receive no payment otherwise. He hadn’t been taken by an evil man; he’d been given away by a treacherous one.

“I chose to keep you because I needed a new companion, and I don’t think anyone else is worth having you. I tend to covet beautiful things.”

_‘He… needs me?’_

_‘He thinks I’m…?’_

“Is that why-…” It occurred to Kyo that maybe he should be quieter, and he bit his tongue. Reminding his master that his collar was deactivated led all too easily to the damned thing being turned back on, and being a nuisance could get him sent back to his cold, lonely cell.

Kaoru ran the fingers of his free hand through his pet’s hair, vaguely amused. “‘Is that why,’ what?”

Kyo’s eyes opened a sliver. “Is that why you did… what you did, for Toshiya?”

The hand in his hair stilled for a moment, and Kyo almost had time to regret his boldness before it resumed its languid stroking motions, Kaoru’s voice holding none of the displeasure his pet had feared. “I suppose I should have expected he’d regale you with tales of my misspent youth. What did he tell you, exactly?”

There was a moment of silence, heavy with uncertainty, before the blonde spoke again, “He told me… that he was sixteen, when he met you. That he was addicted to heroin… that he was… he was a…”

Kaoru’s mouth twitched up into a half-smile. “A whore?”

Kyo nodded, his heart twisting. He didn’t know Toshiya all that well, but after spending the afternoon with the man, had come to mourn the child the blue-haired man had once been. “He said when he propositioned you… you took him home and fed him. He said you helped him get clean, and got him a job in a brothel… that it saved his life… and that it cost you a favor you could never get back.”

Of all the stories Toshiya could have told his pet, Kaoru supposed that particular one was the most telling about his relationship with the blue-haired man. He remembered clearly, even nine years later, how frail the younger man had been when they’d first met. Skeletally thin, hair a matted mess around his face, obviously hurting for his drug of choice, half frozen in a scanty tank-top and mini skirt in the mid-December snow flurries. A far cry from the beautiful, powerful creature he’d become in more recent years.

Getting such a miserable wretch into a whorehouse upscale enough to guarantee the boy’s safety had required he call in a debt that had been decidedly difficult to incur for a nineteen-year-old, and he’d done it without a second thought. It wasn’t an ideal solution – Toshiya was still a prostitute, after all – but it was the best he could do at the time. He was able to make up for it five years ago when he'd ascended to the top of his organization and brought the younger man up with him.

“Did you do it… because he is beautiful? So you could have him for yourself?”

Kaoru smiled fondly, blowing smoke down over his pet’s face, watching the younger man suck it in with a sleepy sort of need. “No.”

For a moment, it seemed like Kaoru wasn’t going to offer anything else, and Kyo deflated a little. He was trying, desperately, to understand the man to whom he’d been given, but it was a daunting task with so much and so little between them. He felt like he could only see half of the situation and the part he was blind to was so vitally crucial to his happiness that without it, he could never be anything but miserable. Perhaps the other half didn't exist, and he was fabricating it subconsciously because the truth was too much to bear, but he reached for it regardless. He realized, with a disjointed sort of confusion, that he’d never even seen his captor so much as shirtless, and it was a barrier between them that he simply couldn’t comprehend.

_'What does He-'_

“I helped Toshiya because it was in my power to do so. He’s better than the life he tried to choose for himself.”

Kaoru made it all sound so simple, so inconsequential, but the words had a profound effect on Kyo. Toshiya had told him earlier that he’d hated Kaoru for a long time after going to the brothel. They’d insisted on his sobriety, and he hadn’t handled the miseries of rehabilitation from his heroin addiction with any sort of grace. He’d blamed it all on the man who’d put him there. But once he was clean, he’d realized the gift that he’d been given for what it was; for the safety, for the security, for the self-respect that he could never have garnered on his own. Since that day, he’d devoted his life to Kaoru, both in his service and as his friend. It made Kyo wonder…

_‘Maybe… maybe, if Toshiya couldn’t see His compassion for what it was at first…’_

_‘Maybe… if his suffering was necessary for his salvation…'_

_‘Maybe I…’_

 

 


	18. Chapter 18

Kyo could learn to love Saturdays.

Although this one had started out somewhat harrowing. His usual morning routine had been forestalled until almost eleven, and by the time his master had come for him, he’d all-but convinced himself that he was being punished for some slight he couldn’t identify. He realized soon enough, though, that the delay in his daily schedule had been due to Kaoru being _intensely_ hungover, not anything he himself had done, and that helped him relax a bit. His master looked exhausted, caught between a pained grimace and a grumpy scowl, but whenever Kyo glanced up to check his mood – a recurrent habit he was developing – the man would reassure him with a tired smile, so he let it be.

A late breakfast and a hungover master weren’t the only things haunting him that morning, although the other was less worrisome and more disappointing. The sky outside the massive window in the tea room was dark grey, wind whipping sheets of heavy rain against the glass in a relentless torrent. The hope that he would be let outside again had been a lot of what kept him stable in the quieter hours of the week when Kaoru was busy at work, so to be so staunchly denied that freedom by Nature herself was a crushing blow.

Kaoru had caught his forlorn gaze out the window during breakfast and, after brief consideration, had guessed at the source of his pet’s dejection. Amusement had colored the older man’s voice when he asked Kyo, offhandedly, if he enjoyed onsen. Kyo had been somewhat startled by the question, as Kaoru was typically very quiet over breakfast, but had managed an affirmative answer. Of course he did, who didn’t? He’d also noted that he hadn’t been allowed into an onsen since the day he got his first tattoo, thanks to… well, people like Kaoru. He kept that thought to himself, however.

When Kaoru asked whether Kyo enjoyed spending time with his master’s friends, he’d had to consider the question more closely. If he ignored the half-formed memories of that night at Zakuro – which he tried his level best to do – Toshiya, Die, and Shinya had been nothing but kind to him thus far, and had been invaluable in piecing together a mostly workable understanding of his master. He wound up nodding again.

Kaoru had smiled at him then, and assured Kyo that he would like where they were going that afternoon.

And so, walking at Kaoru’s heels as they left the master suite, Kyo found himself almost looking forward to something for the first time since he’d come to this place, even if it was a tentative sort of anticipation. The endless hours he spent locked up and alone while Kaoru worked during the week made any kind of outing a treat to be savored. Die met them in the hall, looking no less hungover than Kaoru but managing to maintain a decidedly more cheerful demeanor. He had his hair down for once, and it seemed to soften the harder angles of his face quite a bit.

“Morning, Die.”

“Hey Kao. All set?” The redhead offered Kyo an affectionate grin as they started down the stairs. “And good morning to you, little brother. It’s good to see you out and about. And look at your fancy new necklace! Very nice.”

Kyo fingered the charm at his throat absently. Thursday morning, Kaoru had noticed the newer scratches on his neck from where he’d spent the day trying to itch away the irritation from his leather choker. His master had asked, in a deadly cold voice, whether Kyo was trying to take the collar off again, or just damaging his property for the hell of it. Fearing retribution, Kyo had been quick to duck his head and murmur timidly that the band had just been bothering him lately. He was expecting to have to Apologize for the affront, but Kaoru said nothing further on the matter until that night after Kyo’s shower. Rather than putting the bark collar back on, he’d pulled out a long jewelry box from a locked drawer and affixed his pet with a thick but lightweight chain collar, its ends held together in the front with a small padlock. The padlock still had Kaoru’s insignia on it, and it was still impossible for him to remove, but it was significantly more comfortable than the old one and didn’t seem to have a vibration sensor. He was infinitely grateful for the gift.

“It looks good on him,” Die continued, speaking over Kyo’s head.

“Most things seem to,” Kaoru agreed, a touch of fondness in his voice. “Toshiya keeps telling me about outfits he’s designing for him. Some of them worry me.”

“I believe it. Keeps him out of my closet, at least.”

“He’s still trying to dress you up?”

“Always.”

Kyo kept one ear on the conversation, but most of his attention was diverted to their passing surroundings. He was hoping to one day learn to navigate the sprawling maze that was Kaoru’s home, but he also wanted to watch the other people that lived there. There seemed to be two kinds; very beautiful ones, in expensive looking clothing, and very stoic ones, in simple black suits. Every now and then he also managed to catch a glimpse of what had to be a housekeeper or servant, but they moved very quickly and discretely about their business. Many of those they passed seemed equally curious about him, and he found himself drifting closer to Kaoru’s side to shield himself from their stares. It  
seemed prudent to avoid the attention of people in his master’s employ.

“Hey, aren’t Totchi and Shinya coming? Should we wait for them?”

“They’re already over there. Toshiya didn’t want to have to get up early to come out to meet us when his rooms are in the courtesan house already, and Shinya’s been up since eight.”

 _‘Courtesan… **house**?’_ Kyo wondered, cocking his head thoughtfully.

“Eight, really? He never sleeps in, is he sick?” Die seemed only half joking.

“I doubt it. I think he’s been trying to break himself of his schedule, lately.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm… He seems to be having a hard time with it. Must be difficult to give up habits that were enforced so strictly for so long.”

“But it’s been five years since, why try to change it now?”

Kaoru shook his head. “I guess-”

A familiar chime cut the older man off and he sighed, pulling out his phone with a blank stare. After scanning over the screen, he came to a stop, his face shifting into an irritated scowl. Kyo tensed a bit at the sudden decline in his master’s mood and hoped that it wouldn’t be a persistent one. He’d managed to keep Kaoru reasonably happy for three straight days, and though he had developed a fair amount of faith that he would never be punished for his master’s anger so long as he wasn’t the cause of it, he wasn’t yet fully convinced that that was the case.

“I have to make a call. Daisuke, please escort Kyo to the onsen for me? And use the private showers, all these gawkers are beginning to get on my nerves.”

Kyo swallowed, watching his master stalk off in another direction while Die made a soft noise of assent. He spoke up in a low voice, “Is He going to be angry again?”

Die shrugged. “Eh… hard to say for sure, but I doubt it.” He grinned down at his younger companion then. “Whatever you did on Wednesday was fucking magic, you know. I’ve never seen him come out of a fit like that so fast! I hope you got a good reward.”

Kyo certainly thought he had. On top of the new collar, and the overall gentleness with which Kaoru had treated him since that night, Kyo’s leash had also been slackened just a bit. During the day, he was now allowed access to Kaoru’s bedroom and bathroom instead of being penned up in his cell. The exit door was still firmly locked, as were many of the drawers and cabinets the new rooms, but two simple factors made the new freedom a gift to be savored; the large bay window on the far wall, and the alarm clock radio. Curling up on the window’s bench seat, staring outside while music washed over him – poorly rendered music, coming from the clock’s tiny speakers, but music nonetheless – had become a vital part of his daily routine.

“Still, damn shame that work shit had to come up on a Saturday. He just turns it on and off like a switch, doesn’t he? Best friend to boss in half a heartbeat. Poor bastard.”

Kyo frowned a bit, curious. “Is He?”

“What, a poor bastard? Not really, he’s kind of got it made.” Die grinned, gesturing at their lavish surroundings. “Money, power, prestige, you name it! Not that he didn’t earn it of course…”

The blonde shook his head. It _was_ the first time he’d ever heard anyone express sympathy for Kaoru, but that wasn’t what his mind got caught up on. “No… your best friend.”

“Oh that.” The taller man scratched at the back of his head. “Well yeah. Me and Kao go way back.”

Biting his lip, Kyo considered the wisdom of pressing further. He couldn’t help but notice the way people in the halls shrank away from them even after Kaoru had left. They seemed wary, and he could only imagine that it was Die’s presence spooking them; certainly hardened criminals like these had nothing to fear from himself. He had to wonder if they didn't have good cause to fear Die, if they knew something he didn't. It seemed perfectly likely. But the redhead had been kind enough to him so far, and hearing of Toshiya’s history with his master had been such an immense help to settling his soul, so he decided to try his luck.

“As far back as Him and Toshiya?”

Die winked. “Farther. I don’t think anyone alive has known our dear beloved leader as long as I have.”

Kyo’s mind stuttered a bit over the word ‘alive.’

“We met… hell, it must be thirteen years ago, now? Mm… it was right before my sixteenth birthday so, yeah, it’ll thirteen years in December.”

“Did you… go to the same school?”

The redhead’s laugh was smooth and sweet as warm caramel. “You could say that! No, we um… we shared a room in juvenile detention facility. Ah, so embarrassing! I got caught so easy. Oh man, haha, I remember the day he got there!”

They passed down a long hallway with windows on either side, stretching between the main mansion and a smaller building, into the most lavishly-appointed space Kyo had ever seen. Graceful statues of bronze and lacquered wood, massive potted plants flourishing under countless skylights, and more of those almost-painfully beautiful people colored elegant spaces made cozy by carefully-arranged screens and dividers. Die seemed unaffected by their surroundings – if not almost irritated at the clusters of people who watched them so closely in passing – leading Kyo deftly towards the back of the building and into a secluded washroom.

“I had already been there for a month or so, and I thought I was _tough fuckin’ shit_ , you know? So one night, this scrawny kid with a crazy purple hair gets tossed into my room, soaked to the bone, and I get it in my head that I don’t want to share my little cracker box with some damn street punk. He’s trying to put his shit away and I just march right up to him, tap him on the shoulder, and tell him to ‘get the fuck out!’”

Kyo absently accepted bathing supplies from the older man, listening attentively as he stripped out of his hakama and set it out of harm’s way. Somehow, he had trouble reconciling himself to the idea of his poised, immaculately-dressed master having once been a ‘scrawny street punk.' It was easier to see Die that way, particularly now that the redhead was undressed. Under his clothes, Die was far past rangy, with whipcord muscles traced around long bones and hardly a trace of fat, making Kyo think of nothing so much as a desert coyote. A lean, powerful predator. The older man wasn’t scrawny now, but he was thin enough that Kyo could easily imagine a teenage version of him with gangly limbs and that cocksure grin.

“He turns around and… man, I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on his face. He’s a drowned rat in clothes two sizes too big, and with one fucking look, I couldn’t sleep for a week, I was so sure he was going to stab me the second my back was turned!” Die chuckled fondly, shaking his head.

Kyo frowned as he unwound the bandages from his right hand. The wounds still hurt, but he was sure they were sealed enough for bathing. “But then… how did you become friends?”

“He got himself into a fight in the cafeteria. I don’t know what started it, it could have been his fault for all I knew, but I jumped in to help him anyways ‘cause… well, he was my roommate, you know? I can’t let a bunch of bullies gang up on him, even if he is a spooky bastard.”

Kyo bit his tongue, feeling an ache in his chest unfurl just a bit. Die was that devoted to someone he hardly even knew? The more he got to know the redhead, the more he saw the fierce streak of loyalty woven through his personality, and he wondered…

_‘Would he do the same for me?’_

_‘My… brother?’_

“We stuck together after that. He has a great sense of humor, you know, so we always got along really well. We even gave each other tattoos.” Die grinned, splaying one hand and flashing the ink scales streaking across the back of it. “I did flames on him, but I’m not as much of an artist as he is, and our black pen ran out on mine, so his is all in blue. Totally doesn’t match anything else on him, but he’s never gotten it covered up. Oh, the counselor was so _pissed_ when he saw them! Ah, it was good times…”

“How long were you there?”

“A little over a year. He got out two weeks before I did, and I thought I was never going to see him again. When they finally let me go… well, my family had written me off when I first got sentenced, so they sure as hell weren’t at the gates waiting for me.”

Kyo wrapped a towel around his waist, following Die out of the showers. “But… He was there? At the gates?”

Die grinned down at him. “You bet your ass he was.”

 

 


	19. Chapter 19

It was something of a shock to find that the ‘courtesan house’ of Kaoru’s mansion was home to an actual full-fledged hot springs, and not just a naturally heated bath. It was a relatively small spring, but Kyo was still absolutely floored by the fact that it was smack in the middle of his master’s private property. It was a beautiful thing to see. The rock formations had been carved only enough to be comfortable to sit in the water, left natural and high around the edges for a more intimately secluded feeling. Overhead, the ceiling was all panes of thick glass against which the rain pattered softly, and through gaps in the surrounding stone, one could look out over the entire sprawl of the courtesans’ area.

Toshiya and Shinya were lounging in the steaming pool already, the former watching with not even the slightest bit of shame as Kyo and Die shed their towels to step into the water. Shinya was a bit more polite, but Kyo still felt the auburn-haired man’s scrutinizing gaze on him and was quick to pick a spot slightly separated from the others, sinking into the water up to his neck. He hadn’t noticed it when they left the showers, but Die had brought a bundled towel out with him, and set it now on the rocks at the edge of the pool. It was pretty obviously gun-shaped, and there was an identical one behind Toshiya, which was unnerving. Shinya also had a towel-wrapped bundle behind himself, but his was more rectangular, and Kyo wondered what might be inside of it.

Die groaned appreciatively as he settled next to Shinya. “Oh man, that feels good… I went way the hell overboard last night, that’s for sure. I don’t even remember getting home.”

“That’s because you were unconscious,” Shinya informed him, one side of his mouth quirking up a bit. “I had to carry you to your room.”

“Ugh, no wonder I woke up on the floor! You could have at least put me in bed, or taken off my pants; you have any idea how uncomfortable those things are to sleep in?”

“Haha, he probably didn’t want you to get your hopes up,” Toshiya teased.

Shinya rolled his eyes and looked back toward the entrance, frowning a bit. “Kaoru isn’t coming?”

“He told us to go ahead while he made a phone call. It sounded pretty serious.”

Kyo watched them all speculatively as they talked amongst themselves, more or less tuning out their conversation for the moment. He wasn’t usually one to stare at others in the onsen, but his gaze kept catching on little details of each man that he stored away diligently in his memory. Like their scars.

Some of Toshiya’s, he’d already seen; the permanently damaged skin on the insides of both of his elbows from countless needles. He also had a couple of thick, short lines on his side that looked suspiciously like stab wounds, and what had to have been a massive gash across his left leg just over the knee. Die was a different patchwork entirely; countless lines short and long, thick and thin streaked across his arms and torso, all just barely visible unless one was looking very closely. He’d obviously gone to great pains to take care of the wounds to minimize the scarring. Kyo also spotted a couple of odd pockmarks that he realized with a start were old bullet wounds. He thought at first that Shinya didn’t have any; his skin was flawless at first glance. It was only when the slender man turned around slightly that Kyo caught a glimpse of his back, and a horrendous mess of long, thick stripes crossing messily over one another.

“So Kyo!”

Kyo jumped a bit, looking over at Toshiya somewhat guiltily. Had he been caught staring? Had he actually been staring at that point, or had he been lost in his thoughts? He couldn’t remember… where had he been looking?!

“Kaoru tells us that you give _phenomenal_ head.”

“Oh, um…” A blush flared on Kyo’s cheeks, startled and caught off guard. “Y-…yeah, I-”

On the tip of his tongue was the confession that he had, once upon a time, loved giving oral sex, finding the act to be the purest display of his devotion to his lovers. That he absolutely _adored_ the quiver and squirm of a woman’s thighs, and the high-pitched, whimpering moans they’d make when he went down on them. That nothing set his blood on fire like the barely-restrained buck of a man’s hips as they fought not to give into the urge to just fuck his mouth with wild abandon, blind with the pleasure he provided. That he had, on more than one occasion, cum all over himself without so much as a glancing brush over his cock just because whoever he’d been pleasuring at the time had so thoroughly lost themselves in his ministrations.

It wasn’t necessarily that he was ashamed of how much he enjoyed the act; he’d certainly told people before, when the subject had come up. But that had always been in situations where he could relax, with people who he knew and was at least somewhat comfortable with. Here, where he couldn’t be sure of anyone’s intentions, or of his own place in their world…

_‘Maybe they don’t need to know any of that.’_

“I’ve… done it before…” he mumbled, scratching the back of his head.

Toshiya huffed a bit. He’d spent all day Wednesday trying to get the blonde to talk to him, and had come so damn close several times, but Kyo seemed to catch himself every time, limiting himself to single sentences at best. Kaoru hadn’t been all that much help either, keeping his new pet all to himself like a jealously-guarded treasure and offering very few details about their interactions. It was driving the blue-haired man crazy with curiosity.

“Hmm… oh yeah, he also said you were spooked when he tried to feed you pomegranate seeds. Are you deathly allergic to them, or something?”

Kyo shifted a bit. “Um… no, I’m not…”

“Oh… You just don’t like them, then?”

“I… no, I like them fine…”

 “But then why don’t you eat them?”

Shinya snorted a bit, amused, and Die shook his head with a grin. It really was difficult not to be friends with Toshiya; once he set his mind to getting to know someone, he would keep at it with a dogged persistence until the focus of his attention eventually gave in. Kyo hesitated, trying to figure out the easiest way to answer that question without lying or giving too much of himself away. It was easier to speak with them now, with everyone stripped naked and relaxing, but not enough that he felt safe to open himself up overmuch. The ill-disguised hope and interest on Toshiya's face made him feel like something of a cheat for trying to hold out on him, though, after how much the older man had shared with him on Wednesday.

_'I guess it's not very fair...'_

_'He and Die told me their stories...'_

_'I owe them something in return, don't I?'_

He sighed and cast about for the right words to portray his thoughts.

“Where I come from… ‘zakuro’ is slang for a horrible, bloody wound. Regardless of what I might do to myself,” he ran one hand absently over the letters scarring his own chest, “I can’t really allow myself to accept such pain from another person. Whatever might be inside me… it’s something I can't make myself share easily.” He shook his head, trying to find a more straight-forward answer for the simple question. The best he could come up with was superstition. “Besides, I’m no Persephone; I would make a terrible queen for this underworld.”

“‘Persephone’?” Toshiya leaned forward. “What does that mean?”

Shinya’s mouth quirked up on one side in a curious sort of smirk. “…You’re referring to the Greek myth?”

“Yeah.”

“Myth? I don’t know any Greek myths… will you tell it to me, little brother? Please?” Toshiya wondered, hopefully.

Kyo sighed, closing his eyes. If they kept calling him that so honestly, so fondly, he may never find it in himself to deny them anything.

“Persephone is the daughter of Demeter, goddess of the harvest and grains. Hades – who rules over the souls of the dead – falls in love with her, but knows that Demeter will never consent to his courtship, even though he’s wealthy and powerful, so many would consider him a worthy suitor. So one day, when Persephone is out picking flowers, he kidnaps her and makes her his queen.” Kyo opened his eyes again, and now there was a small fire there that had not been burning previously; a storyteller's passion for words. “Hades isn’t a cruel husband. He lavishes his new bride with all the finest silks and jewels and entertainments; everything she could ever want. But Persephone is the daughter of the green goddess… she misses the sun, the wind, the flowers that can never touch Hades’ dark world. She becomes depressed, and refuses to eat or drink.”

He lifted one hand, splaying his fingers wide. “For a year, she remains underground, and her mother mourns her loss. The world becomes barren, plants and crops withering to nothing in recognition of Demeter’s grief. Zeus realizes that if this continues, all of humanity will die, and no one will be left to worship them, so he commands Hades to let Persephone go.”

His gaze shifted suddenly and settled just to one side of Die’s shoulder. “…Before the messenger can come for her, Hades takes Persephone aside and asks her to eat just a small bit, just to sooth her hunger… she accepts only six pomegranate seeds from him. But the Fates had ruled long before that anyone who ate the food of the underworld would be bound to it; a force that overrules even Zeus’ word. So now, she spends part of the year in the sun with her mother, but for one month for every seed she ate, she has to go back into the dark with her husband.” He looked up at the skylight above them. “It’s fall now… so Persephone has just returned to Hades’ side, and her mother is mourning her again.”

Toshiya and Die gaped at him for a long, awkward moment, while Shinya fixed him with an appraising stare. He didn’t really mind; it wasn’t the first time he told a story that unsettled those around him, if only because people so frequently underestimated him.

_‘I’m a drop-out, so I must be stupid.’_

_‘I’m quiet, so I must not have anything worth saying.’_

_‘I’m **cute** , so I must have nothing inside but sugar and fucking rainbows.’_

Tiresome presumptions, but ones he was more than used to.     

_‘I’m no criminal, but… I suppose I’m far from pure, either.’_

_'I don’t particularly like beautiful things or an unrealistic view of the world.'_

_'If pushed, I’d have to say I like dirty and scary things.'_

_'Maybe this place is where I am meant to be...'_

Toshiya spoke first, a wide grin spreading across his face. “That is so fucking _cool!_ Kaoru, ‘Lord of the Underworld!’ Ha! As if he doesn’t have enough of an ego as it is without an extra god complex.”

Die laughed. “It’s a bit harsh of a harsh comparison though, I think? Kaoru’s not the devil, even if he’s got the face for it.”

Shinya had not missed the significance of Kyo’s choice of stories, or his careful wording. He held up one hand. “Hades wasn’t the devil; he was the god of the dead.”

“What’s the difference?”

Kyo bowed his head. “Hades isn’t good or evil. His underworld is not heaven or hell exclusively; it’s only what each person deserves. Though I suppose it does hold true for Master Kaoru… that if you speak the devil’s name and he doesn’t appear before you… you might want to turn around.”

There were three blank stares for a moment, then Shinya figured out what the blonde meant and turned his head over one shoulder quickly. “Kaoru! How long have you been there?”

Kaoru straightened from where he’d been leaning on a rock halfway between the pool and the entrance, stubbing out a cigarette in a nearby ashtray.

“A while. I didn’t want to interrupt your story.”

As Kaoru crossed the room and stepped into the water, and Toshiya and Die offered sheepish greetings/apologies, Kyo realized that after two weeks living with the man (including sleeping with him twice), this was the first time he’d ever seen his master naked. He carefully took in and cataloged a patchwork of scars; countless tiny cuts, a handful of bullet wounds, and a red patch on his chest the size of his palm that looked like a horrific burn. His master also had a solid coating of tattoos from the backs of his hands all the way up over his shoulders, partway onto his chest and back; skulls and crosses and cartoonish graveyards beautifully rendered almost entirely in grayscale with a few splashes of red here and there.

And there on his right hand, like a beacon, was the blue streak of twisting blue flames Die had given him, lovingly surrounded but never encroached upon by the professional art.

Kaoru settled into the water next to his pet. “You always say such peculiar things about me. And here I thought you were just being picky about your breakfast.”

Kyo halted his perusal of his master’s body and returned to more familiar territory, searching the older man’s face for an indication of his mood. Kaoru seemed amused, but still obviously wasn’t feeling well, perhaps even worse than before. Whatever his phone call had been about, it had soured his mood and worsened his headache. It set the blonde’s nerves on edge.

_‘Other people keep upsetting Him when I’m not around!’_

_‘No wonder He needs me to keep Him happy…’_

“Nothing good ever comes from pomegranates,” he said carefully.

Kaoru cocked his head. “I found you in a ‘zakuro.’”

Kyo bowed his head deferentially, and Kaoru grinned a bit. The ‘my point, exactly’ may not have been spoken, but it was understood.

_‘But… don’t I make Him happy by… getting Him off?’_

_‘I can’t do that here! Not with everyone watching!’_

_‘No… that can’t be right. Shinya said He needs other things too…’_

He hesitated a moment, unsure of himself, then bit his tongue and slid around behind his master, resettling himself on a slightly higher rock shelf just behind him and sliding his fingers under the older man’s hair carefully. He had nursed countless friends and lovers through hangovers before, so he knew just where and how hard to press his thumbs at the base of Kaoru’s skull, rubbing slowly to sooth away his headache. He felt Kaoru stiffen at first, then let out a long breath and lean back against him.

“Aw, man! I’m jealous.” Toshiya pouted. “Nobody ever rubs my neck when my head hurts.”

Die grinned. “Damn boss is so spoiled, isn’t he?”

Shinya shrugged, more relaxed than he had been all of the previous times Kyo had seen him. “Perks of the empire.”

Kaoru reached up a hand to smooth over Kyo’s arm fondly. “Such a good boy…”

Kyo could learn to love Saturdays.

 

 


	20. Chapter 20

One long finger – graced with a small, curling tattoo along the back – pressed a plastic button delicately. Music flared up out of the box abruptly, static-laden at first, then smoothing out into a clear, if somewhat tinny, beat. Despite the poor sound quality, the man operating the little alarm clock radio sighed in bliss. His master evidently shared some of his musical tastes, because the radio was always tuned to the station that he would have chosen.

Settling onto the narrow bench tucked into the bay window to bask in the morning sunlight, Kyo tucked his legs beneath himself comfortably, resting his most valued treasure in his lap as he flipped it open. The notebook was a terribly simple thing – just a plain black cover binding pristine white pages – but he considered it to be the greatest reward his master had ever given him. It gave him a catharsis he was unable to find anywhere else; doodles, poems, and free-form writing serving as an outlet for the constant swarming thoughts that bounced around his head in the quieter hours of the day.

Worried that the scratches on the wall in his room would become too noticeable as they multiplied, he’d also transferred his tally-mark calendar onto the first page of the book. He resolutely ignored the niggling worry that a single page might not be enough space for the number of days he was to stay there. With a steady hand, he added the fifth dash to the sixth cluster on his calendar before flipping through to a half-finished drawing he’d started the day before. His motions were unhurried as he resumed work on the image; he had nothing but time until Kaoru came back from work.

_‘Thirty days…’_

_‘I’ve been here an entire month, now.’_

_‘I wonder… how long will He need me?’_

Kyo had surreptitiously asked Toshiya about his master’s previous companions last Saturday. He hadn’t been able to get much out of the man before Kaoru came back, but apparently his master had gone through a great number of pets, keeping a couple for as little as two days. The one before Kyo – Die had pointed her out, a bombshell blonde named Nozomi with legs that went on forever and jealous green eyes – had been the longest lived, serving Kaoru for six straight months before he sent her back to the courtesan house. No one really knew why he kept some longer than others, or why he dismissed some who seemed to have kept him perfectly happy.

Tapping his pencil eraser against his lower lip, he frowned a bit.

_‘He’s been… **restless** lately…’_

_‘All weekend, now that I think about it.’_

_‘He doesn’t seem upset, at least…’_

_‘But definitely edgy.’_

It was a disquiet that he couldn’t seem to touch, in spite of his best efforts. Kaoru was often stressed by his work, but Kyo had been quickly learning how to deal with the various levels of the man’s temper with reasonable success until now. Very mild irritation could be soothed away with simple touches; Kyo curling himself up against his master’s chest as he was fed dinner, sidling against him on the couch or rubbing his neck while he watched television. Higher forms of frustration could be sucked out of him, though Kyo was still working on how to feel out when he would benefit more from a leisurely blowjob versus when he needed to be overwhelmed.

It went a long way toward preventing him from getting upset by things at work, but Kyo had been surprised to realize that Kaoru very rarely seemed to want sex when he was angry. Other than the night Kyo had shocked him out of a temper with a drug-hazed romp, every time they’d been together, Kaoru had already been in a good mood. Including that very morning, when his master had summoned him out of his cell early and taken him against the shower wall. His knees were still a bit wobbly from that particular encounter.

_‘He seemed happy enough when He left, but still…’_

_‘It’s like He’s… anxious about something…’_

_‘I wish I could ask Toshiya… he would know, I bet.’_

It was only Monday and Kaoru seemed content to only take Kyo out of his quarters on the weekends. Unless there was another “emergency” requiring Toshiya to help Kyo calm a particularly bad fit, he probably wouldn’t be seeing the blue-haired man soon enough to do any good. Sighing unhappily, he shook his head and went back to his drawing. Kaoru’s restlessness unnerved him.

_‘I’ll have to figure it out, if it doesn’t clear up soon…’_

_‘I guess I could try-’_

The door to the bedroom unlocked and opened in one swift click, startling Kyo badly; he hadn’t heard the front door open or close, or footsteps coming down the hall. Kaoru was standing in the doorway, pinning him in place with an unusually intense gaze, and he found himself staring back with a frozen deer-in-headlights sort of expression. For a long, tense moment, everything was still, the only sound between them the clamor of music pouring out of the radio. Then Kaoru was moving with long, purposeful strides to cross the room, one finger coming down on the OFF button with just the slightest bit too much force. Kyo dazedly registered the glowing numbers on the clock’s display: 10:53 AM. Kaoru had hardly been gone two hours.

“M-… Master?” he murmured uneasily when the silence stretched on too long for his comfort. “You… you’re back early…?”

Kaoru crossed his arms over his chest, looking somewhat tense. “I couldn’t focus on my work. I was planning on holding off on this for a while longer, until you were settled in a little better but… I need you to do something for me, Kyo. If you can.”

_‘He called me by my name…’_

_‘He **never** calls me by my name.’_

_‘He looks even more worked up than He was before…’_

Kyo closed his notebook and set it on the window bench carefully. “What is it?”

“Come with me.”

Kaoru turned on one heel and stalked out of the room, and Kyo was quick to follow, eyeing his master uncertainly. The older man was practically humming now with that agitated energy and it leant an almost predatory grace to his every movement. Kyo was mildly surprised to find them following the familiar path to the tea room, but what struck him dumb was Kaoru walking up to a wall the blonde had been certain was solid and opening a small panel, revealing a door handle. Though Kyo saw no key or pin pad, he heard a lock click when Kaoru grabbed the handle, and stared on in apprehension as a portion of the wall slid away to reveal another small room. Kaoru gestured him inside.

_‘What… what the hell is this?!’_

The first step he took into the room made him stumble a bit, and he looked down in confusion. Wall to wall, the floor was made up of a springy black material that sank slightly under his weight. There were no windows; the room was lit by an odd arrangement of small lights fixed along the outer edge of the ceiling, all twisted to point to the center. The far wall was one enormous mirror, the others were painted a deep shade of blue-violet that gave the space an almost surreal sort of feeling. Two heavy wooden posts stood in the center of the room, about two-and-a-half meters apart with sturdy steel hoops mounted up their lengths at regular intervals. More of the hoops also adorned the ceiling, the walls, and even the floor. Off to one side, a folded step ladder and a small stepping stool were tucked neatly under a table holding a camera, a collapsed tripod, and several meticulously-wound bundles of black rope.

Kaoru’s voice, unusually husky in his ear, sent a shiver down Kyo’s spine as he wondered, “Have you ever been tied up, my pet?”

Kyo felt his mind grind to a halt.

_‘… **Oh** …’_

_‘Oh gods…’_

_‘Oh-’_

_-“Tied up.”-_

_-“Do you trust me?”-_

_-“ **Tied** **up**.”-_

_‘-gods, oh gods, oh gods…’_

“I… I ha-” His voice cracked then, just a bit, and a wild blush flared on his cheeks. “N-Not really? I… y-you mean, like… shibari?”

In the mirror, Kaoru’s mouth pulled into an amused smirk, his eyes near-black with anticipation. “Yes, like shibari.”

Words failed him. The handcuffs-to-the-headboard kind of thing he’d done, certainly, but what Kaoru had in mind was obviously so far removed from that kind of bondage that they could hardly even be considered related. Kyo had always been somewhat fascinated by the more elaborate forms of rope-play that he’d seen online, but he’d never been with anyone patient enough to indulge in the art, let alone anyone he trusted enough to be so completely and utterly _vulnerable_ with.

He tried to swallow, and found his mouth had gone dry. “You… you want to…?”

“Oh yes. If you think you can handle it.”

There was a forced sort of consideration to Kaoru’s voice that caught Kyo’s attention and he turned slowly, putting his back to the foreboding room to face his master.

Kaoru leaned against the doorframe, looking just slightly frustrated now. “This is one thing I will never require or force you to do for me. Without your complete cooperation, I can’t do it properly, and I can’t enjoy myself. Before you decide, know that I won’t be angry if this is too much for you to accept right now, just disappointed. I will, however, be _incredibly_ pissed if you agree to it now and try to bail out halfway through.”

Kyo bit his lip, looking back over his shoulder at the hooks in the wall.

He wanted to say “no.” He wanted to take advantage of the one real choice he’d been offered and opt out of this terrifyingly foreign situation. He wanted go back to the things he’d managed to come to understand; the relative comfort of his clean white cell and his daily routine and the simple touches and simple sex that had kept Kaoru happy thus far. The thought of being so thoroughly restrained, so undeniably helpless at the hands of his captor was deeply terrifying in a way that nothing else had ever been. And Kaoru had promised not to be mad if he refused!

_-“I need you to do something for me, Kyo.”-_

But…

_‘He’s unhappy, now…’_

_‘I have to take care of Him…’_

_‘He **needs** me…’_

He spoke softly, carefully. “This… this will make you happy?”

Kaoru nodded. “Very much so.”

“And, you won’t… you won’t hurt me?” Bondage was one thing, but sado-masochistic play was another game entirely; one that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he couldn’t handle at this point.

“You’ll be fine if you behave. I don’t usually do anything too painful, but it can be somewhat uncomfortable, and putting up too much of a fuss in the ropes can hurt you.”

Kyo took a deep breath.

_‘This is all about trust, isn’t it?’_

_‘He’s asked me to trust Him before…’_

_‘To bare my throat when He was holding a **razor** … He does it every night.’ _

_‘That’s way scarier than this, right?’_

_‘He needs this.’_

_‘He needs me to do this for Him.'_

Clenching his fists at his sides, Kyo looked up at his master with every last shred of resolution he could muster. “Just tell me what to do.”

 

 


	21. Chapter 21

Slow, haunting music filled the darkened corners of the room; the soft sounds of prayer bells and muted drums underscoring a low flute melody. A single, long stick of incense burned away, ghostly wisps of smoke drifting up to skitter along the ceiling, filling the space with a subtle chypre scent. Sealed away from the outside world, everything about the room took on a surreal, dreamlike quality. Kaoru’s movements were almost unnaturally graceful as he stripped himself down to his trousers, meticulously folding his jacket, shirt, vest, and tie into a neat pile on the table next to his shoes and socks. Kyo’s hakama was already there, a flimsy shield of heavy blue silk whose absence left him shivering in spite of the relative warmth of the room.

Kaoru slid the small stepping stool out from under the table and positioned it between the two wooden posts, taking a step back to ensure that it was properly centered before beckoning Kyo over. The blonde obliged silently, trying his very best to take solace in the fact that the frenetic energy plaguing his master already seemed to be waning a bit just in anticipation of this act. The stool was only twenty-five centimeters tall, raising him just over the older man’s level – an odd change in perspective. Kaoru circled him slowly, appraising him with an almost meditative sort of consideration. After a few laps, he seemed to come to a decision, nodding to himself and picking up the first bundle of rope and a smaller black square of cloth before coming to stand behind Kyo.

His master caught his nervous gaze in the mirror and offered him a faint smile. “Try not to be so tense. We’re going to be here for a while, and it will be more comfortable if you can relax a bit.”

The cloth was unfolded into a long strip of glossy silk, and brought up to wind three times around Kyo’s eyes before being tied off at the back of his head. The darkness it imposed was perfect; so starkly reminiscent of the days he’d spent in Time Out that it took every last shred of his will to force his muscles to stay lax as requested. As it was, the blindness pulled him so quickly into the still-damaged depths of his psyche that when the first touch of hands on his shoulders dragged him back, he jumped enough to nearly fall off the stool, a strangled noise of distress bubbling in his throat.

Kaoru hummed a bit to himself, unwinding his first rope. The blindfold was one of his favorite aspects of this style of play, but it made it far more difficult to read his pet’s stress level, which was crucial on normal days, let alone their first bondage session. Usually he could anticipate when the younger man was approaching a breaking point so long as he could see his eyes. Leaving Kyo’s hands free for the moment helped a bit – the blonde was incredibly expressive with the subtle curling, splaying, and clenching of his long fingers – but he needed something else to monitor to be sure.

“Tell me a story, pet,” Kaoru murmured smoothly into his pet’s ear.

Kyo latched onto that voice, and the hands snaking ropes along the back of his neck, with every fiber of his being, because those things didn’t exist in Time Out, and served as anchors to the real world. He could handle the darkness, as long as Kaoru’s presence kept the demons at bay.

“A… a story?” he breathed.

“Yes.”

The ends of the rope began to wind their way down his chest, Kaoru’s hands brushing against his flesh as he wove them around one another into skillful knots and bands. A gentle press of thin palms encouraged Kyo to raise his arms a bit to make room, and he did his best to remain in the position he was guided into.

“W-what kind of story?”

“Any kind you like.”

Kyo swallowed and cast about desperately for a myth or folktale through a dizzy haze of worry and wariness. Being robbed of his sight was making his skin hyper-sensitive, and the slightly-rough texture of the cool jute rope was contrasting wildly with the smooth warmth of Kaoru’s hands, sliding over every centimeter of his torso. It was getting to the point where even a light brush over something as innocuous as his shoulder gave him goosebumps. He started telling the first tale he could think of; Yotsuya Kaidan, a well-known ghost story about betrayal, murder, and revenge. It was a story that Kaoru was very familiar with – he’d seen movies and kabuki plays based on the tale more times than he could count – but he listened closely to the tones of his pet’s voice as he worked.

As ropes wound their way around and around his torso, hooking and knotting and weaving betwixt and between one another in an endless dance, Kyo spoke at a steady pace. His voice wavered and broke, however, as his thighs were urged to spread and the rope ends made their way between his legs, winding into careful loops around his genitals. Kaoru wasn’t touching him any more than was strictly necessary to properly arrange the ropes, but nor was he making any particular effort to avoid contact. Hearing his pet’s distress, he took a moment to smooth one hand soothingly over the younger man’s quivering belly.

“Shh, you’re alright. Tell me what happened next.”

Kyo swallowed. He could hear Kaoru’s breathing, slow and steady, and found himself matching cadence with it to calm himself as he told the last bit of his story. Any time things became hard for him to handle, and his voice would quiver tellingly, his master would murmur reassurances to him, waiting until he was calm enough to continue before carrying on. At some point he had altered the pace of his speech to follow the rhythmic wrap-tug-knot-slide of Kaoru’s motions, and it lilted now as the ends of the rope came up to coil several times around his waist. It was tied off to form an intricate harness encasing his entire torso and hips, leaving his limbs completely free to move but fitting him so closely that he couldn’t inhale too deeply without straining the bonds.

“You’re doing very well. Tell me another,” Kaoru prompted soothingly.

Kyo started up again – offering the Grimm Brothers version of Snow White this time – as he felt a new rope winding its way around the coils at the waist before beginning to wrap-tug-knot-slide down the length of his left leg. Had he been a bit more focused, he might have appreciated the care Kaoru was putting into everything he did. The ropes were kept precisely tight enough to hug his flesh closely without cutting off or excessively straining circulation to any part of him as an elaborate casing was formed around each of his legs, one at a time. As it was, he struggled to keep his voice steady with a flush forming on his cheeks, increasingly unnerved by his binding. Still, he could move, but now he would only be able to walk, the newest binds preventing him from bending his legs enough to run. He was effectively hobbled.

Kaoru paused in his ministrations long enough to plant a light kiss on the skin just above Kyo’s navel, and the blonde shivered in response, fingers splaying and toes curling.

“Don’t you know any stories with happy endings?” Kaoru wondered.

Kyo shook his head slowly. He was rapidly becoming overwhelmed by a steady surge of conflicting emotions he couldn’t even begin to identify, welling up inside of him with every twist, coil, and knot of the binding ropes. He had expected to be nervous through this procedure; it only made sense, as he was rendered more and more helpless to his master’s whims as time crawled on. But whatever these new sensations were, they were making him dizzy, leaving him raw and aching inside.

Kaoru collected his next rope and moved to stand behind the younger man, running a fond hand through soft blond hair. “You’re doing wonderfully, Kyo, I’m very pleased. Tell me another story.”

Kyo’s voice hitched as his arms were brought behind his back, struggling to remember a Bram Stoker story called the Squaw that he’d read nearly a dozen times, about a mother cat seeking revenge after a tourist kills her kitten. He was having difficulty staying calm with rope slowly making its way up and down and around his arms, binding them tightly behind his back. It pulled his shoulders back and left his chest and belly exposed, vulnerable. The bindings wrapped all the way from his wrists to his upper arms, completely immobilizing them, and he had to pause his story more than once to pant shallowly in an attempt to keep himself stable.

By the time he was finished with his tale, the arm rope was secured to the back of his torso harness, and he was wrapped neck to ankle in an intricate web of tight, unforgiving bonds. The fleeting touches of hands over his skin disappeared, along with the faint scent of Kaoru’s cologne and the lingering heat of his body nearby. Over the pounding of his heart and the faint music still thrumming along in the background, he couldn’t hear so much as a swish of fabric or a whisper of breath. Kyo trembled as panic washed over him.

_‘W-where’d He go?’_

_‘Did He… did He leave?!’_

_‘I’m… all alone?'_

_'I **can’t** be all alone!’_

_‘What if something happens?!’_

He flexed and squirmed in his bonds, a frantic, keening whine escaping him as he found the ropes completely unyielding. “M-Master…? Kaoru?!”

His master’s calm voice came from his left, only a little further away than it had been before. “What’s wrong, pet?”

The panic unraveled a little and he huffed anxiously, “Don’t…”

_‘Don’t make me do this any longer…’_

_‘Don’t let anyone hurt me…’_

_‘Don’t sto-…!’_

“Don’t leave me…” he whispered.

There was a short pause and he thought he might have heard the faint hiss of ropes sliding against one another, before the warmth, the cologne, the steady breathing returned. A hand traced soothingly over his cheek and he pressed into it, shaking.

Kaoru pressed a sweet, lingering kiss to his pet’s forehead, smiling against the smooth flesh with a promise. “I’m not going anywhere, dear pet. How could I, when you look so damned beautiful like this?”

A new rhythm began. Kaoru would move away for a few minutes, and Kyo would hold his breath listening to the barely-audible whispers of his movements, then he would come back and weave the ends of his current ropes through those wrapped around his pet. Kyo was slowly guided, one rope at a time, to turn slightly to one side, his back bending into just a touch of a curl. He couldn’t focus enough to tell anymore stories, and his hands were flexing nervously at his back, so every time Kaoru came back, he would pause his ministrations to offer his pet some comfort; a kiss planted on a straining shoulder or sweat-slicked neck, a light stroke of the hand down a shivering back. Kyo wrapped himself in each of these reassurances, binding his frantic heart with them just as jute ropes bound his trembling body.

One of his legs was brought up just a bit, bent at the knee, and ropes were steadily wound through the one arranged around it. It took a few minutes, but Kyo found that he had little trouble balancing, supported by the ropes that had already been affixed to his torso. When the leg was released, he found he couldn’t move it in any direction; it was secured in midair. Then the hand landed on the back of the leg supporting his weight and tugged, and he whimpered nervously.

“Let go, pet. I won’t let you fall.”

It took a couple of tries to obey. Blindfolded, knowing he was standing on a narrow stepping stool, Kyo was deeply reluctant to surrender his last means of self-support. Scrunching up his face and bracing himself, he took a breath and forced his leg to relax into Kaoru’s pull, immediately falling-

_‘Wh- what…?’_

-not so much as a single centimeter.

“Good boy.”

The ropes woven around him tightened a bit – hardly enough to even be noticeable, the pressure was so evenly distributed – and suddenly he was suspended in what felt like freefall. Whatever Kaoru had tied him to was more than strong enough to hold his weight. His leg was strapped in alongside its twin, then released, and he heard Kaoru finally come to a stop. There was a long silence. Squirming a little, experimentally, Kyo found that the ropes that had been attached to his bindings were too taut in too many directions to allow him to move anything up or down, or front to back. There was a little bit of wobble side-to-side, but it made him more than a little queasy to sway that way with so little sense of where the ground was.

“Ka-… Kaoru…” he whispered shakily.

He heard a zipper, and the unmistakable sound of flesh sliding over flesh. He knew what it meant, and felt an odd little tremor wash through him at the idea that just by hanging here, he could have such an effect on someone like his master. He felt his cheeks flush with as Kaoru’s breathing sped up, then hitched, just before a sticky, liquid heat splashed over his legs. A few minutes later, there was the sound of footsteps, then the _~whir-click-beep!~_ of what could only be a camera. Both sounds repeated themselves, pacing in a slow circle all around him, and he bit his lip. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling now, couldn’t quite reach it to identify, but it was a shuddering mess swirling just under the surface and he felt liable to burst with it at any moment.

Then thin hands came up to remove his blindfold. He could suddenly see himself in the massive mirror; naked, ropes coiling intricately all around his frame, suspended in the center of an enormous spider’s web stretched between the two wooden posts. His body was straining, every muscle clearly outlined and glossy with a fine sheen of sweat, a splash of cum painted across his thighs. To his utter shock, either due to adrenaline or something else, his cock was standing at full attention, nearly dripping. It was perhaps the first time in his life he'd ever considered himself beautiful without so much as a stitch of clothing or a brush of make-up. Kaoru loomed behind him, watching his reaction in the looking glass with eyes gone velvet black with self-indulgent bliss, and slid a tattooed hand around his erection, stroking slowly.

"Nnh! Ah... Ma... Master, please, I..."

Kyo felt a thousand confliction emotions slam into him at once and gasped at the barrage. He was vulnerable in his bindings, but safe locked away in this secret room. He was constricted by so many ropes, but was naked and flying in midair. He felt cherished for his master’s devotion to wrapping him so beautifully, even as he felt used for the man’s pleasure. He was a victim in Kaoru’s web of sin, and yet the glossy look in the man’s eyes, and the sticky stain on his thigh spoke of the power he possessed over him. He felt like he was dreaming, even though the clinging constriction of countless ropes assured him that this was all too real.

He should be terrified; he knew he should be terrified because he was absolutely helpless in every sense of the word and he couldn’t move, which was doing horrible things to his baser human nature which screamed with panic at the immobilization. But at his core, he clung to the faith that had held him together this entire time; that Kaoru wouldn’t let his precious pet come to harm, because he needed him and almost seemed to… treasure him, somehow. With that thought resounding in the dizzy haze of his mind, Kyo let himself fall into the overwhelming surge of emotions and screamed as his world went black and his own heat splashed up over his belly.

"Beautiful…"

Kyo didn’t find his way back to himself for some time. The incense had burned out, the music had played itself to death, and he was free of the ropes, only faint red pressure lines across his skin standing testament to their existence. Kaoru was sitting cross-legged on the floor, stroking his hair and murmuring reassurances as he lay curled up in the older man’s lap, sobbing his eyes out under the strain of what had to have been the most emotional climax he’d ever experienced. In one hand, he was clutching the band of black silk that had held him in darkness for the past several hours and had forced him to rely on Kaoru to stave off the demons in his mind as well as real-life monsters that would harm his flesh.

Kyo didn’t fully understand what it meant, or why he needed what it represented so badly, but he would cling to that silk – and to Kaoru – for hours in the aftermath of his first shibari session.

 

 


	22. Chapter 22

Kyo was warm. He was blessedly, blissfully warm, comfortably ensconced in the plush folds of a heavy down comforter, arms and legs draped haphazardly around the soothing heat of another human being. His body was lovingly cradled by the decadent bulk of a Western pillow-top mattress, his head resting in the perfectly-shaped indentation of flesh between his master’s shoulder and chest. His limbs were pleasantly heavy with sleep, rain was pattering against the window in the sweetest lullaby, and he could feel his own heartbeat pulsing slow and strong through every centimeter of his body. It was the second time he’d been allowed to sleep in Kaoru’s bed, but the first he’d been officially invited to spend a full night there, and after a month of sleeping in his little corner – curled up cold on the hardwood floor – he fully intended to savor every last second of it.

Except…

_‘I have to piss…’_

If it wouldn’t have risked waking Kaoru, he’d have groaned out loud. He didn’t want to get up! He was more comfortable than he could ever remember being, and exhausted to the bone at such an ungodly hour of the morning. Besides, as hard as he had been trying all evening to pull himself back together, he was still incredibly raw inside from the emotional upheaval of his first shibari session. He needed human contact, craved simple, uncomplicated touch, and he was getting that from his master. Even the faint rasp of the taller man’s breathing – a low sound on each inhale between a purr and a soft snore that signified deep, deep sleep – was a balm on his frayed nerves.

_‘What if I wake Him up and He sends me back to my room?’_

_‘Ng! But I have to go so **bad…** ’_

_‘Fucking rain isn’t helping!’_

_‘Maybe if I just go really quick… and quiet…’_

Kyo spent a good ten minutes fussing over the decision, wishing he could just hold it, but knowing that it was too pressing of a need to put off for the four hours until morning. Biting his lip, he extracted himself with painstaking delicacy from the bed, making sure not to wake Kaoru with his movements and cringing at the cold air outside the blankets. Once he was free, it was a mad, silent dash into the master bathroom to use the toilet, knowing he’d never make it to his own in time. He relieved himself with a long sigh, winced a little at the too-loud rush of the toilet flushing, then shuffled over to the sink to wash his hands. Glancing up as he rinsed the soap away, he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror and went perfectly still.

_‘What… the…’_

_‘Is that… me?’_

It had to be… didn’t it? That was his nose; small and round, with a silver stud tucked into the outer curve of one nostril. That was his mouth; the lips he thought were too full, the two rings piercing one side and the silver ball on the other, the crowd of crooked teeth he’d been told a million times were ‘endearing.’ That was his chest with his scars, and his arms with his tattoos, though he’d lost quite a bit of muscle tone since he’d stopped dancing. He reached out one hand to trace slowly over the curve of his reflection’s cheek.

_‘It **looks** like me…’_

_‘The same damn mongrel I’ve seen every day for twenty-three years.’_

_‘So then, why…’_

_‘Why does it feel like I’m looking at someone else?’_

He stared at himself for a long time, head cocked curiously. His eyes looked wrong… too big and too soft and not quite as focused as they had once been. They looked hopeless, somehow… empty and dull.

_‘Am I still… me?’_

_‘Am I still Kyo?’_

_‘Or… is there nothing left but… **His** pet?’_

_‘I’m not so sure, anymore…’_

He frowned at himself, and found that to be more familiar. He used to frown at his reflection quite often, he remembered. Encouraged, he tried a few other facial expressions he felt like he hadn’t used in a while, having to force what had once been so natural. For over half an hour, he snarled at himself; grinned sweetly, then maniacally; pouted and smiled and grimaced and glared and scowled and puffed out his cheeks. He’d once been very expressive, his face ever shifting to coincide with his admittedly capricious moods. Jutting one hip out to the side and crossing his arms over his chest, he settled back from the mirror to regard himself with eyes slightly narrowed.

‘ _There I am…’_

_‘Fuck… I’m… I’m going to lose myself here, aren’t I?’_

_‘If I’m not careful… I’m going to be broken… and I’ll have **let** it happen...’_

_‘I know I’ve always been weak, but… that doesn’t mean I should stop trying to be stronger, right?’_

He flicked out his tongue, prodding at his lip rings thoughtfully.

_‘But… wouldn’t it be easier…?’_

_‘If I could just hollow myself out… make an empty place inside where I’m not afraid and ashamed and confused all the time…?’_

He felt his hackles rise at the thought, and savored the feeling of indignation.

_‘Well, of course it would be easier.’_

_‘But life isn’t supposed to be fucking easy, now is it?’_

_‘What’s the point of struggling so hard to carry on after everything I’ve been through if I just roll over and die now?’_

_‘Adapt and survive – body, mind, and soul. I’ll bend if I have to but I can’t let myself be broken.’_

Glancing down, his resolute frown took on a more confused tilt as he took in the long black silk band wound around his left forearm. It had been his blindfold during the shibari session, and he’d been unable to let go of it afterwards. He needed it, somehow; needed a physical reminder that when he’d given Kaoru everything, the older man had not once betrayed his trust. While he was tied up, Kaoru could have done anything he wanted, and Kyo would have been completely helpless. He wouldn’t have been able to run or fight back, and locked away in that secret room, no one would have saved him. But Kaoru… Kaoru had tied him gently, ensuring that he was comfortable and reasonably calm during the entire session, touching him so sweetly to bring him off when pleasure overwhelmed him, then holding him in his lap when emotion followed suit.

Having the blindfold close by reminded him of the unadulterated trust he’d offered, and the patient consideration it had been rewarded with. Having it wrapped around him reminded him of the helplessness of bondage, and the security of the protection his master had provided.

_‘Gods, I’m so fucking stupid.’_

_‘I should know better than to trust **anyone** **.** Especially Him!’_

_‘I’m like… like an ugly little mutt at the pound.’_

_‘Attaching myself blindly to the first person to show me any affection…’_

_‘Even when I know I’ll always get kicked aside and ditched in the end.’_

He shifted his weight and ran the fingers of his right hand over the black silk, fingering the smooth material. Kaoru, ever the perfectionist, had tied it very neatly, at just the perfect tension to hold itself in place without straining circulation. It made him feel… cherished, almost, when his master took such care in doing things for him. No one had ever really taken care of him before; he’d always been the one holding up others in the rare situations that he had let people close to himself.

_'He does seem to care about me… at least a little.'_

_‘I wonder…’_

_‘I wonder, does Kisaki miss me?’_

_‘Does he regret giving me away?’_

_‘Is he waiting for me to come home?’_

_‘Did… did he ever… care about me, really?’_

The more practical side of his nature was screaming, ‘NO, YOU STUPID FUCK! TAKE A HINT!’ in answer to each question, flinging the irrefutable evidence of his current situation into his face as proof. But the more sentimental part of him much closer to the core wanted desperately to believe that there was still someone out there who loved him, even if only as a dear friend. Someone whose memory he could cling to and take strength from while he was in captivity, who would be waiting for him whenever he managed to get free.

_‘Maybe… maybe he just didn’t have any other choice?’_

_‘Maybe he didn’t know things would be like this for me here.’_

_‘Surely he wouldn’t… he wouldn’t **knowingly** sell me into something like this…’_

_‘Gods, I wish I could talk to him again… just once.’_

_‘Just so I can know one way or the other…’_

_‘What I wouldn’t give for a pho-…’_

Kyo’s eyes went wide and his mouth opened a little as his brain shuttered to an abrupt stop, one glaring piece of information screaming its way to the forefront of his mind. His entire body shook with a sudden desperate anticipation as he crossed the bathroom, grabbing onto the doorframe and peering out around it to confirm…

Kaoru’s cell phone was laying on the nightstand.

_‘…I have to know…’_

_‘Oh gods… Kyo, you stupid shit, what are you doing?’_

_‘Just for a minute… I’ve been so good; I’ve earned this much…’_

_‘This is a bad idea, this is a really bad idea!’_

_‘I just have to know.’_

Bare feet moved one in front of the other slowly, silently, with a halting sort of hesitant need.

_‘He’ll fucking kill you if He catches you!’_

_‘It won’t cause Him any trouble… I just have to know if Kisaki-’_

_‘He’ll be angry! He’ll be so damn angry, haven’t you learned by now?! Don’t make Him angry!’_

_‘He’s asleep… He never needs to know…’_

_‘ **He’ll put you in Time Out.** ’_

Kyo’s hand faltered at that, hovering just over the coveted device. His eyes flicked nervously over to Kaoru’s sleeping form. Eyes still closed, face still lax, breathing still slow and deep. Safe enough now, but Kyo was sticking his hand into the sleeping hawk’s nest, and he had no way of knowing how much or how little it took to wake his master.

_‘…I have to know.’_

Long fingers closed with infinite care around the phone, lifting it slowly from the nightstand. Kyo’s heart pounded in his ears and he stared at Kaoru with wide, guilty eyes as he backed away from the bed, every cell in his body quivering with the effort to stay silent. His movements were stilted, caught between trying to hurry and trying not to make any noise – gods help him if he tripped right now – as he made his way back to his cell. He pulled the door most of the way shut, not wanting to lock himself in with the proof of his disobedience, and darted into the little bathroom, tucking himself into the farthest corner as he stared down at his prize. Shaking fingers dialed a well-known number and he pressed the cool plastic to his ear, breath coming in shallow, nervous pants as he listened to the line ring…

_‘Please…’_

And ring…

_‘Please, Kisaki…’_

And ring…

Kyo bit his lip. Two more rings and it would go to voicemail.

_‘I need you, Saki, **please…** ’_

One more ring…

“…Nnnh…’llo?”

The deeply familiar, dearly beloved voice grumbled sleepily in his ear, and Kyo could have cried in relief. He clutched the phone so hard the plastic creaked in protest, and he squeezed his eyes shut to focus on the memory of his friend. Kisaki would still be laying in bed, he knew, eyes closed and face mashed half into the pillow even as he answered the call. His blankets would be kicked all over the place, his clothes scattered all over the floor, and he’d be sprawled out shamelessly in nothing but his boxers, with his hair in an unflattering mess around his face. Such a familiar image, and one that had meant 'home' to him for so long.

“Hello?” the voice called again, tired and irritated

 _“Kisaki…”_ he whispered, his voice trembling with hope and fear and a thousand other things he could hardly identify.

There was a long pause, and Kyo knew that Kisaki’s eyes were fully opening into a confused frown. That long body was turning over and sitting up, and one hand was pushing absently through black and red hair in a halfhearted attempt to tame it.

“Who is this? And why are you calling at… fuck, two-thirty in the damn morning?”

 _“Saki, it’s me!”_ The noise that crept out of Kyo’s throat might have been a laugh or a sob.

“…K-…Kyo?”

_“Yeah! I know it’s late… or early, I guess… but I… I just really wanted to talk to you… I’ve missed you so much!”_

There was a soft shuffle, and Kyo imagined Kisaki taking the phone away from his ear to stare at the screen in baffled disbelief.

“…Kyo… I… where are you? Whose phone is this?”

Kyo folded his legs and tucked them as tight against his chest as he could. “ _I’m at the mansion still… He hasn’t let me go yet, but-”_

“‘He’? Who is ‘He’?”

Kyo blinked, confused. Kisaki didn’t sound happy to hear from him… in fact, the younger man sounded almost scared. _“Well… Master Kaoru, of course. He… He kept me as a… as His… pet…”_

There was an odd, choked sort of sound. “You-… you’re in Kaoru- _fucking_ -Niikura’s mansion?! And you called me on _his phone?!”_

_“Well… yeah… I mean, He’s asleep, so He doesn’t know, but I just really want-”_

“ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE?!”

Kyo jerked the phone away from his ear, shocked. _“Ki-… Kisaki, what-”_

“What if he fucking traces the number or some shit and finds me?!”

_“B-But… I wanted to-”_

“He’ll fucking kill me, don’t you get it?!"

_"Saki, wait, please, I just-"_

"Look, Kyo, just… don’t call me anymore! I have nothing for you! I moved out of the city to get away from that bastard and I’m not coming back! I ditched the apartment, I got rid of all your stuff, I gave your rats back to the pet store; I have nothing for you, so just don’t… don’t fucking call this number ever again, alright?!”

_“Kisa-”_

_~click~_

_“…ki…?”_

 

 


	23. Chapter 23

Dazed gold eyes stared down at the phone long after the ‘call ended’ icon flashed by and the screen went dark as the device went back to sleep. He’d thought that talking to Kisaki would bring him some hope; a light at the end of his tunnel to guide him through the darkness of his new life. Some part of him had wholeheartedly believed that his friend would be relieved to hear from him, maybe cry tears of joy to know that he was still alive and relatively unharmed. He wanted – _needed_ – Kisaki to explain that he hadn’t had any choice in giving Kyo away, that he was sorry, that he missed him and worried about him, that everything was going to be okay, and he wasn’t a whore for trying so hard to pleasure Kaoru to spare himself more suffering, he just didn’t have any other choice. That as long as he stayed strong, someone would be there waiting for him when he finally got free.

_-“Don’t call me anymore!”-_

His fingers went slack and the phone slowly slipped between his fingers before dropping to the tile floor with a dull, plastic sound. For a few minutes, he was blessedly numb, his mind gone silent and still with shock. But all too soon, his former best friend’s words sank in fully and all at once his heart constricted with a sickening pain, a shuddering whimper falling out from between his lips.

_‘He… he really doesn’t…’_

_‘He never…’_

_‘I…’_

Tears stung at the back of his eyes and his fists clenched viciously at his sides.

_‘Don’t you **dare** cry for him, youstupid fuck!’_

_‘You always knew Kisaki was selfish!’_

_-“I have nothing for you!”-_

_‘ALWAYS!’_

_‘You knew it every fucking time he blew all his money in the fucking casino and left you to pay all the bills and all of rent and buy all the food for goddamn both of you, no matter what you had to give up!’_

_-“Don’t fucking call this number ever again!”-_

_‘Every promise he ever made to you was a goddamn lie!’_

_‘You knew, you **always** fucking **knew** he was using you, no matter what he said!’_

It only made his chest ache more fiercely, and he curled in on himself in a futile effort to alleviate some of the pain. He’d spent so long clinging to the belief in his friendship with Kisaki, putting so much faith in every hug and smile and heartfelt vow that they would always have each other no matter what else happened. To lose that now, when he needed it more than ever before…

He hurt so badly, he just wanted to scream until he couldn’t hear his own bitter, miserable thoughts and Kisaki’s loveless words anymore. He wanted to claw and tear at his own flesh until physical pain drowned out emotional anguish, cauterizing the freshest wounds on his heart. He wanted to feel his own blood flow out over his skin, hot and thick and sticky like liquefied heartbreak, to let it eek out from where it was throbbing under his skin, threatening to burst. But he couldn’t. He wasn’t allowed to be noisy, and he wasn’t allowed to damage himself, and as much as he needed both, he couldn’t bring himself to so flagrantly disobey his master’s direct orders. His body simply refused. He couldn’t even let himself cry.

_‘But I want it!’_

_‘He… He promised if I was good, I would want for nothing.’_

_‘I’ve been good! I’ve been so good for Him!’_

_‘He said I would get what I want.’_

Kyo shook his head wildly, digging his fingers into the floor to keep himself from digging them into his own flesh.

_‘He can’t have been lying to me, He **can’t!** ’_

_‘It’s all I have… His word is all I have left.’_

_‘If I can’t believe in Him, I have nothing left to believe in…’_

_‘So why can’t I-’_

His eyebrows snapped together and his head came up, looking hard at the door to his cell as something in his mind clicked into place. An understanding that – if he was right – would answer his previous question of whether or not being a good pet for Kaoru meant killing off his own personality and the profane needs that came with it. A belief that he could get what he wanted… so long as he gave his master what _he_ wanted in the process.

_‘I’m not allowed to damage His property…’_

_‘But **He** is.’ _

_‘I just have to… take hold of the power He’s given me…’_

One hand closed around the phone and he rose to his feet with a disconnected sort of grace; years of training as a dancer lending instinctive fluidity to his movements while his mind was too busy sorting itself out to be impart any control. His heart was racing with so much pain and fear and anticipation, and he wondered distantly if it was healthy to look forward to pleasing Kaoru so much, regardless what he might get out of it. A quick stop in the master bathroom to collect a familiar bottle and glance in the mirror. Still himself, but with an edge of desperation and… will? Resolve? He turned his back on the reflection and went back to his master’s giant bed, untying is hakama and letting it fall around his ankles, stepping out of it without skipping a beat.

Dropping the bottle within easy reach, keeping the phone clutched in his left hand, he steeled himself, ducking beneath the covers and ever-so-slowly, carefully, crawling through the sheets on all fours to settle across Kaoru’s legs. He rested a hand and a knee on either side of the long, bare limbs, careful not to jostle or press on anything yet. No sense in waking the man prematurely. From his spot under the covers, he couldn’t see the older man’s face, but he kept himself very attuned to the rhythm of his breathing, ever watchful for a telling hitch or change in pace as he reached one hand down and delicately eased his master’s boxers down off of thin hips. Part of him balked a bit; no matter how considerate Kaoru was during sex, no matter how hard he’d cum every time, he didn’t want to enjoy sleeping with the older man. It was a means of survival, nothing more.

_‘To get what I want…’_

_‘To get what I need…’_

_‘It’s not the first time I’ve slept with someone I didn’t love, I suppose.’_

He ran the beaded edge of his lip rings lightly down the length of Kaoru’s cock, watching it twitch just a bit at the contact.

_‘Though they always say that love is putting another’s happiness before your own…’_

_‘Maybe this grotesque perversion of love… is what I’m meant for?’_

_‘What I wretched soul I must be, that this is all I can hope for in life…_

He moved his lips and tongue slowly, but intently, mouthing and suckling at the heated flesh just enough to excite his master without waking him. The legs beneath him bent and slid against the sheets, spreading ever so slightly, and he faintly heard a pleased, sleepy murmur through the blankets. More than once, his tongue slid over a particularly sensitive spot and the hips beneath him bucked, a low grunt sounding startlingly loud overhead, and he was sure he’d been caught. But Kaoru remained lax and pliant, so he kept at his work until the older man was throbbing, hot and hard on his tongue.

Heart skipping in his chest, he sat up, letting the blankets catch on his shoulders and fall behind him. His right hand crept out to pick up the bottle he’d discarded earlier, popping the top open and tipping it to let clear, slippery liquid coat his fingers. As he rubbed his fingers together, warming the fluid between them, he watched Kaoru’s moon-bathed face scrunch up a bit in irritation, one hand groping languidly for the blanket as his skin shivered in the cooler air. Kyo slid up the length of the taller man’s body, reaching down between them to spread the lubricant up and down his master’s erection as he positioned himself over it. Dark chocolate eyes fluttered open sleepily, and barely had time to register the blonde kneeling over him with a wild look on his face before the lithe body above him dropped abruptly.

Kaoru bucked, eyes flaring wide as his arousal was encased in his pet’s almost painfully tight channel with one vicious push. “ _Hng!_ Fucking _Christ!_ ”

“Unnn…”

Kyo’s head rolled back, panting harshly as his hips twitched despite his efforts to steady them. Kaoru was well lubed, but all that did was reduce the friction as he was torn open, and the pain was absolutely intoxicating. Agony shot up his spine, swallowing his emotional turmoil and leaving him breathless.

_‘Heh… funny… that I so afraid He’d fuck me like this before…’_

_‘But now… **taking** it from Him… I’ve never felt so strong…’_

A breathy laugh escaped him as his back curved into an indulgent arch. He felt the cold plastic of Kaoru’s phone in his palm, and it only served to remind him of his need. Baring his teeth in a snarl, he ignored his body’s call to slow down, to back off, and settled immediately into a frenzied roll against Kaoru’s hips. The older man moaned and swore beneath him as Kyo slammed himself up and down along the burning flesh piercing him. Kaoru rocked up to meet his every thrust, and Kyo felt hands grasp at his hips, preparing to flip him over so his master could take control.

His eyes flashed wildly and he bent down to mouth angrily at Kaoru’s long throat, growling huskily in his ear. “No. Let me.”

“Hnn… Kyo, what th-”

The blonde shifted his hips, thighs spreading and rolling to change the angle and take his master in even deeper, and Kaoru’s eyes rolled back into his head, abandoning the effort. He couldn't focus through the pleasure washing over him, through the absolutely stunning sight of his moonlit pet riding him so passionately. The younger man looked like some kind of beautiful, feral fey creature, and he lost himself to self-indulgence. Kyo felt a heady thrill at the victory and redoubled his efforts; pain and exhaustion making his legs quiver as he rode Kaoru for all he was worth. Pleasure wound itself through the agony spearing through him and he tossed his head back again, loosing the piercing wail that his master only allowed when they were coupled.

_‘Anh! It feels so **good!** ’_

_‘To bleed…’_

_‘To scream…’_

_‘To be in control… of myself… of Him…’_

And Kaoru was clearly in ecstasy. His thin hands gave up trying to direct Kyo, and fell instead to digging into the younger man’s back, raking blunt nails over smooth, sweat-slicked flesh. Kyo howled in response, his inner muscles spasming wildly around Kaoru’s arousal. The constriction made his master moan and dig his fingers in harder, and the cycle repeated in a brutal, beautiful whirlwind of blood-slicked rapture.

When Kaoru’s hips snapped up and froze, head tipped back with a low groan as he released into his pet, Kyo slowed his frantic rocking to a more sedate undulation. Knowing he could take no more from the older man, content with the throbbing ache in his back, he fell back into an impossible-looking arch, his shoulders falling between Kaoru’s knees. One hand slid down his chest – flexing once over his heart in a fleeting desire to scratch that he tamped down immediately – before smoothing over his belly and threading his fingers through the soft curls between his legs. He yanked at the hairs once, hissing his pleasure even as Kaoru grunted beneath him in response to the muscles squeezing around his spent cock, before moving further down to stroke himself roughly. It was a short order before his own mess was spurting across his belly, sticky and thick and sickly warm as his final cry echoed around them.

For a long time, the only sound between them was ragged panting, punctuated by the occasional swallow and sigh. Kaoru groped hazily at his night table, dragging a single cigarette to his mouth and waving a lighter around until he found the end of the stick to light it. Kyo lifted himself slowly, shivering at the rush of pain washing up his spine as they came apart, then settled carefully between his master’s spread knees. He craned his head back to look at the ceiling and his lips curled into a smile that was equal parts anguish and relief as tears finally came loose to slide down his cheeks. He felt more than he saw the slow once-over that Kaoru gave him, and wondered how he could possibly explain himself should the man question his actions.

He missed the dark chocolate gaze coming to rest on the stolen treasure in his left hand, but he heard the soft whisper of a body moving over sheets as the older man sat up a bit. He glanced down and went very still at the ice cold stare his master was giving him.

“Kyo… what’s that in your hand?”

_'…Shit.'_

Kyo lowered his head, averting his eyes guiltily.

_‘I should have put it back before He woke up…’_

There was nothing for it now. He reached out, the black silk around his forearm flashing dully in the moonlight, and set the phone on Kaoru’s chest, keeping his head downturned. His breath hitched just a little, a fat tear falling off his chin to splash across his thigh. There was a sudden movement and he made no effort to dodge or block the open-handed blow he knew he deserved, his head snapping to one side, pain flaring across his left cheek. It stung all the more for the wetness on his face, and that seemed fitting somehow. He held his gaze down submissively as Kaoru picked up the phone and sifted through the recent calls irritably.

The older man raised a curious eyebrow. Only one call, and it wasn’t to 110 as he’d expected. “Whose number is this?”

Kyo cringed. “…Ki-”

_‘Just saying his name hurts…’_

 “…K-Kisaki.”

"…" Kaoru snubbed out his cigarette and put his phone back on the nightstand, password locked this time. “It’s late, go wet some towels and get this mess cleaned up, then come back to bed.”

Kyo’s head came up, hopeless confusion written across his face.

Kaoru caught his gaze and held it; pitiless understanding making his eyes hard. “I think it’s pretty obvious you’ve learned your lesson here. He took care of that for me.”

 

 


	24. Chapter 24

“Fuck! I can’t _do_ this!”

Toshiya sighed, watching Kyo push away from the low table and flop onto the floor with over-dramatic, defeated petulance. Across the table between them, countless redundant sheets of paper spread in a dizzying mess of grainy pictures and prosaic words; the source of so many headaches and so much abject frustration for them both. Toshiya rose on his knees a bit to look over the table at his unruly charge, who had now slipped a hand under his new reading glasses and was rubbing tiredly at his eyes.

“Oh quit your sulking, it’s not that bad! There’s only a couple dozen people to memorize, any half-decent courtesan could manage at least twice this much.”

Kyo bristled with frustrated offense. “Then maybe He should get a half-decent courtesan to flaunt around at this stupid party.”

Sometimes he wondered if Toshiya wasn’t too easy to talk to. There were some thoughts he really would rather keep to himself, if only because they bordered dangerously close to outright rebellion. But ever since Kaoru had informed him that he would be “debuting” at his master’s annual Christmas party, he’d been spending the bulk of his days with the blue-haired man in preparation, and it was difficult to stay reticent around him. Toshiya always wanted him to talk, and he really could only be so diplomatic for so long before his real thoughts and opinions started creeping through. The taller man was simply too congenial for Kyo to be anything short of himself, in spite of his best efforts.

For the first couple of days, he’d worried every time a too-honest opinion or frustrated refusal to cooperate surfaced within himself, but the blue-haired man was always patient with him, always cheerful, and he found a surprising amount of comfort in that freedom. Toshiya man would offer him a gentle warning every now and again, when he crossed a line that Kaoru wouldn’t have forgiven if he had been present to witness it, but otherwise let him speak his peace. He also had a somewhat unique perspective on the situation that Kyo was in; not necessarily sympathetic, because he certainly didn’t feel bad for Kyo, but understanding that this life was outside the scope of the blonde’s experience, and always willing to offer advice and support. In a lot of ways, Toshiya’s blunt-yet-accommodating nature helped him to reconcile his own personality with the expectations placed on him as Kaoru’s pet, which was an indispensable gift.

Besides, though he’d never admit it, he was lonely when Kaoru was working, and Toshiya was good company.

“Propriety demands he bring his personal companion, and that’s you, sweetness. It also demands that you be familiar with the bigwigs that show up to these things, and the proper etiquette for dealing with them.”

“I’m only His companion because… I don’t know, He likes my blowjobs? Not for my social skills, that’s for damn sure.”

Toshiya grinned. “Well, sorry, but you can’t spend the rest of your life in the bedroom. Besides, if you do a good job, it’ll make Kaoru extra happy, and maybe he’ll give you an extra-special reward.”

Kyo sat up, frowning. “Don’t say that.”

“Eh?” The grin faded, and the blue-haired man’s head cocked curiously to one side. “Why not? What’s wrong with rewards?”

The blonde averted his burning gaze just a bit. “If I only keep Him happy because I want gifts from Him, that makes me a whore. If I keep Him happy because I’m afraid of Him, that makes me a victim. I never want to be either… ah, no offense.”

“None taken. I made my bed years ago, and I’m man enough to sleep in it – cum-soaked sheets and all. Why do you keep him happy then?”

“Well… if I keep Him happy just because I want Him to be happy… without any regard for how it affects me directly, then I’m just-”

“In love?” Toshiya cut in, maybe a little too excitedly.

Kyo’s lips quirked up in a wry smile. “Altruistic. You read too many romance novels.” He sighed then, plucking absently at the folds of his dusky-violet hakama. “…That’s what I tell myself, anyways. I guess if I’m being honest with myself, I do like the rewards, and I am afraid of making Him angry…”

Toshiya rolled back a bit and unfolded his legs, reaching his arms up to pull the entirety of his body into a languid stretch. He didn’t really mind the break in their lessons, after spending the morning rehearsing Kyo’s debut performance, then a couple hours drilling etiquette while their lunch settled before they would start rehearsing again. “Really? I think you’re one of the best companions Kao’s had. He’s been so damn happy lately; he’s almost back to the way he was before he took over the family. When’s the last time you even managed to make him angry?”

Kyo’s answer was immediate, requiring no consideration. “When I took His cell phone while He was sleeping.”

“And how long ago was that?”

Again, no hesitation. “Twenty-nine days.”

“See? Almost a whole month! I think you worry too much, you’ve got good instincts for this.”

Kyo huffed a little, but chose to neither argue nor agree. A month spent on his master’s good side had gone a very long way to soothing the chaotic turmoil inside him, as Kaoru had a surprisingly affectionate nature in his quieter moments. Kyo was treated as a cherished pet – spoken to in calm, smooth tones; touched with gentle hands; gradually given more and more freedoms, more and more small gifts; smiled at and petted and praised for his efforts to please – and he had mostly relaxed into the mellowed handling. The part of him that yearned for the older man’s kindness had become the dominate force in his mind.

But there was still a little bit of him that feared Kaoru’s darker side; that shivered when the man came back to their quarters in a sour mood and stilled his tongue when the honesty asked of him was too bitter for propriety. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was not broken only because Kaoru _chose_ not to break him, and he struggled always to maintain that fragile truce.

“I don’t think I can do this,” he grumbled again, more for the sake of obstinacy this time than out of any real frustration.

Toshiya chuckled a bit, catching the change in tone. “That’s a damn shame. I guess I’ll have to tell Kao to find a second-best. Die will be heartbroken to hear it.”

Kyo’s head came up, a confused frown tugging at his brow. “…Die? Why would Die be upset?”

“Well he was just so excited to hear that you would be debuting at his birthday party. He’ll be crushed when he finds out his favorite little brother couldn’t cut it.”

“Birthday party? I thought this was a Christmas party?”

“That’s what’s on the invitations, yeah, but we hold it every year on the twentieth for Die’s birthday, just because he loves the holidays so much. He’s been bugging me every night at dinner to tell him what your performance is going to be.”

Kyo bit his lip a little, looking back down at the hated papers on the table. His trepidation for the party was _almost_ enough to risk Kaoru’s disappointment by finding some reason to be excused from it. He was absolutely terrified at the prospect of performing alone on a massive stage in front of hundreds of strangers, and following that with an evening rubbing elbows with mafia big shots made his stomach shudder. But now, not only was he risking upsetting Kaoru, but Die too? He liked Die; the idea of souring that damnably sweet smile made his chest ache, just a little. And he knew Toshiya would be hurt by it as well, counting it as a failure after so many days of effort trying to get Kyo ready… With a resigned sigh, he pushed his glasses back into place on his nose and picked up the profile he’d been working on memorizing.

Toshiya blinked, a little surprised. “What, no more fussing? That easy?” He laughed a bit. “Oh, honey, don’t tell me you’ve got a thing for Die!”

Kyo scowled over the top of the paper. “Of course I don’t. I’m not that stupid.”

Toshiya stiffened a bit, his face caught between confusion, offense, and hurt. “What does that mean? Why would it be stupid to like Die?”

One delicate eyebrow quirked. “It would be stupid for _me_ to like Die for a lot of reasons. Not the least of which being that, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m somewhat spoken for.” Kyo tugged pointedly at Kaoru’s emblem hanging at his throat. “And I know full well that my master is as jealous as He is vain.”

Which was truly saying something, considering the extent of Kaoru’s vanity. Kyo had, more than once, watched on with utter fascination as his master went through the convoluted morning rituals of primping himself for the day. Everything – his hair, his skin, his nails, his clothes, his jewelry – was maintained to the highest possible standards, and may the gods help the housekeeper that allowed a crease to mar a jacket or failed to refill an empty bottle of soap. In Kyo’s eyes, Kaoru was the very embodiment of the Sin of Pride, wrath and even lust taking a backseat more often than not.

“Besides, I…” Kyo hesitated a bit, finding his next thought to be too sentimental for his tastes, but carried on because he didn’t like how upset Toshiya looked. “I would never want to try to take him away from you.”

Toshiya’s face went stark white, then blushed to a brilliant red, his voice coming out somewhat strangled. “W-what… what do you…?”

Kyo returned his gaze to his studies. “I’ve seen the way you look at him, the way you talk to him, the way you touch him… it’s a little less than the way you interact with everyone else, because you don’t want to be caught, but a little more, because it means so much more to you when it’s _him_. Even if I had a chance with someone like Die, I wouldn’t do that to you. You’re…”

_‘…What?’_

_‘My friend?’_

_‘My… brother?’_

“…Nevermind. I just wouldn’t want to hurt you that way.”

He heard a shifting of cloth and looked up, surprised to see Toshiya had vanished from the other side of the table. Turning, he found the taller man standing next to him, staring down at him so intently that for a moment he thought Toshiya was going to hit him. He set his papers down, opening his mouth to apologize for speaking aloud what was obviously something of a secret, but before he could get out so much as a single word, the blue-haired man was descending on him. He knelt there, perfectly frozen, hands held out to the side with no clue what to do with them, as long arms wound around him and he was clutched against a thin chest.

“Ah… Toshi…?”

“You are the sweetest, most beautiful little brother I’ve ever had,” Toshiya murmured in his ear, voice trembling a bit with emotion.

_‘Oh jeez…’_

_‘He must have it worse for Die than I thought.’_

_‘And Die doesn’t even…’_

_‘Poor bastard.’_

Kyo sighed and returned the hug awkwardly.

“Please don’t tell anyone?”

He chuckled a bit, sympathetically, at the pleading in the older man’s voice. “You know I have to tell Master Kaoru if He asks… but I’ll try to keep it to myself.”

Toshiya sniffled, burying his face in the crook of Kyo’s neck. “…Thanks…”

They knelt that way for a long time. Kyo wondered to himself if he was really the only one to have noticed Toshiya’s infatuation and, if so, how long the blue-haired man had been keeping it to himself. It had to be a painful secret for one so extroverted. Kyo himself had only spotted it because he spent so much time silently observing Kaoru and his friends every time he was allowed out to join their gatherings. He’d also figured out some things about Shinya and Die that they probably didn’t intend for him to know, but he only really saw Die when the redhead escorted him to and from the courtesan house for his daily lessons, and he’d never once been alone with Shinya to speak of such things. When Toshiya did manage to pull himself together, Kyo politely ignored the man’s bloodshot eyes and blotchy cheeks, surreptitiously wiping away the mascara-laden tear streaks left on his bare shoulder while Toshiya cleaned up his own face.

The rest of the afternoon passed by as the last week or so had; he studied the names and profiles of other mafia bigwigs that would be coming to Kaoru’s party until Toshiya got himself back under control, then they spent a couple hours rehearsing Kyo’s performance. No matter how many times they ran through it, he was still nervous. It would be his first time alone on a well-lit stage in front of people who weren’t drunk and/or high, and the show was much more elaborate than anything he’d done at the bar, so he wanted to practice as much as he possibly could to be sure he wasn’t going to botch the whole thing. Three o’clock rolled around, and Toshiya bid him farewell with another crushing hug before shooing him out into the hallway and disappearing into his own quarters.

_‘Pining in privacy, no doubt.’_

Kyo looked around for Die and saw no sign of the lanky redhead. He sighed to himself and moved out of the hallway to the main room of the building, settling himself onto the arm of a cushy chair facing the entrance to wait. As tired as he was, he knew that if he sat properly in the chair, he’d fall asleep straight away, and the endless stares he got from passersby every time he was out and about in this place made him hesitant to risk such vulnerability.

_‘People are always fucking staring at me here…’_

Minutes ticked by on the clock over the door, and by three-thirty, Kyo began to get restless.

_‘Where the hell is Die?’_

_‘Master will be upset if I’m not there when He gets back…’_

Chewing absently at his thumbnail, Kyo weighed his options. He wasn’t expressly forbidden to wander the mansion on his own, but he’d never really gone anywhere without an escort, so he assumed he wasn’t supposed to move about alone. But, he’d been back and forth between Kaoru’s quarters and Toshiya’s realm enough times to have the route down well enough, even if he wasn’t familiar with the rest of the mansion, so it wasn’t like he’d get lost. And Kaoru _would_ be upset if Kyo wasn’t there waiting for him when he returned from his work…

With that thought in mind, he found himself rising from his seat and drifting out through the main entry rooms of the courtesan house, out into the long hallway connecting the little building to the main mansion. The halls were busier than normal; there were only thirteen days left before the big Christmas party and everyone was working round the clock to ensure the whole thing went off without a hitch. Kyo kept close to the wall, feeling oddly exposed as he made his way down the hall. Everywhere he went, people seemed to watch him, and he wished – not for the first time – that Kaoru would let him wear a kimono under his hakama so he wasn’t bare-chested all the time.

_‘And they still look nervous…’_

_‘I thought it was because of Die, but... it’s me too, isn’t it?’_

_‘…No.’_

_‘It’s what I am to **Him**.’_

_‘Everything comes back to Him…’_

_‘FUCK!’_

Kyo bristled, shoulders hunching as a wave of goosebumps washed over him from a chilly blast of wind against his side. Then he realized what it meant. Wide gold eyes came around slowly, ever so slowly, to the door he’d just passed in front of, hanging open onto the wide expanse of gardens and koi ponds. All at once, all the noise and crowds and movement around him seemed to fade away, and all he could see was the wide open beauty of a winterswept garden laid out in front of him like a glorious feast for his senses. The sun just beginning to think of setting, the clean air, the sleeping plants, the quiet trickle of water and the peep of birds settling in… they called to him.

_‘It’s so… beautiful.’_

_‘I… could…’_

_‘No one’s with me…’_

_‘Should I… run?’_

His breath caught in his throat at the thought. To be free again… to feel wind in his hair and grass on his feet… to cross back into the light after so long living in the dark world his master ruled over… To take his life back into his own hands and finally be done being confused and afraid and ashamed all the time…

_‘But… where would I go?’_

_‘He needs me still.’_

_‘I want to be free…’_

_‘Kisaki took everything from me, and-’_

_‘The others need me too… Die and Toshiya and Shinya…’_

_‘I need to be free…’_

_‘Wouldn’t He just hunt me down?’_

_‘They take care of me…’_

_‘Everything out there just… hurts…’_

_‘I want…’_

_‘I just want… to be happy…’_

Kyo was absolutely torn. Part of him wanted to run and never stop running until his last breath escaped him and he could run no more. It wanted to wear his own clothes and sleep in his own bed and go to the grocery store and pay bills and all the trivial meaningless bullshit that he’d once taken for granted. It wanted to regain control of his life. Part of him was terrified of a disobedience that would surpass all others before it, possibly pushing Kaoru over that final boundary of tolerance where the man finally just killed him. It feared the resources at his master’s command and their ability to track him down wherever he might go, either to put him down on the spot or drag him back here for punishment.

Part of him – a bigger part than he wanted to admit – didn’t want to leave because he knew he was still needed here. It knew that Kaoru still needed Kyo to take care of him, to keep him happy. It knew that Die and Shinya and Toshiya still needed him to take care of Kaoru as well, to reach the places in the older man that they couldn’t and sooth away the strains of life as a mob lord. It knew – or maybe just hoped, lonely and yearning for friendship that didn’t stab him the moment his back was turned – that they might even miss him for his own sake. Toshiya would, he was almost certain, especially after today. And Die seemed quite fond of him. Shinya, he could never really tell, and Kaoru…

“Oh, thank the gods! There you are, I thought for sure Kaoru was going to have my head for forgetting you out here-…”

Kyo turned his head at the sound of Die’s voice, the bare longing and hopeless confusion written across his face telling the redhead plainly of his thoughts. Die stared down at him for a moment, then slowly shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around the younger man’s shoulders, gently pulling him away from the door and the intoxicating, terrifying freedom it offered. As they walked away from it, Kyo twisted his neck around to stare, almost happy to have the choice taken away because he simply couldn’t make it himself.

“Come on, you’re going to freeze standing around in the wind like that,” Die chided gently, saying nothing of the thoughts of escape he knew the younger man had been entertaining.

“It was… so beautiful… don’t you ever want to go outside, Die?” Kyo wondered, sounding lost.

Die smiled down at him. “Maybe later, little brother. Right now we have to get you back to Kao; he’s had a rough day.”

“Oh…” Kyo spared once last glance toward the door as a passing security guard shivered and pulled it shut, then turned to face forward. “Right… I guess I should go take care of Him, then…”

~*~

A whisper called out in the dead of night, searching for something from the body wrapped so possessively around his own. "… _Master_?"

The response took a moment, a low voice gone husky with sleepy satiation. "Un?"

" _Do you… do you care… about me?_ "

A yawn. "I value all of my possessions, pet."

" _But…_ ** _me_** _, as a person…?_ "

"I don't know you as a person yet. I can't say for certain either way."

"… _Oh_ …"

The forthright honesty was as comforting as the physical imitation of love was painful.

 

 


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The performance in this chapter is set to Dir en grey's _Deity_ ([Album](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyS6LmCTtz0) / [Live](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MurAE92neJc)) which I do not own or profit from using.

Hands pressed flat together and held tight against his forehead, legs crossed underneath himself, head bowed, Kyo prayed fervently to every god of every mythos he could think of. He prayed for grace. He prayed for strength. He prayed for poise. He prayed to anyone who might be listening, pleading from the depths of his soul for _someone_ to turn a kind eye to him just this once, reach down a hand, and help him to not screw up this performance.

It was the evening of December 20th, and after a month of practicing his routine over and over, day in and day out, until it took over his every waking moment and more than a few of his dreams, it was finally time for the real thing. He was going to debut as Kaoru’s pet. He was going to be on stage –  _alone_ – his body, his voice, his every movement criticized as a representation of his master's affluence. In front of over two hundred people. The majority of whom were key players in mafia families throughout the country. And to this day, the only people to ever see the performance had been himself and Toshiya.

The anxiety was starting to make his stomach ache. He finished off his prayer, bobbing his head once in finality before standing. Technicians and stagehands were flitting about still; their movements hurried yet purposeful, every one of them silent as the grave to keep from being heard over the courtesans already on stage. It was dark backstage, but he could just make out Toshiya’s form a few meters away, peeking out from the end of the curtain to watch the show. His blue-haired tutor had been on a more masculine kick for the past week, so tonight he was in a black suit with a tailed jacket that complemented his long form nicely. Kyo’s bare feet made almost no sound as the crossed the polished wooden floors of the backstage area to peer out as well.

The loveliest dozen men and women of Toshiya’s flock were all primped up in their finest, singing and dancing and telling stories together for the past half hour or so. They were only using the front-most portion of the stage, the back section still curtained as the scene was set for Kyo’s show, but they made full use of the space they had. He couldn’t help but envy them a little. They were all so perfectly confident in themselves, and why wouldn’t they be? Every last one of them was a living, breathing Adonis or Aphrodite, statuesque and graceful, near-flawless in both their appearances and their performances. Kyo was terrified to follow such an act.

“ _Totchi, they… they’re beautiful…_ ” he whispered, awed.

Toshiya smirked, perfectly smug. “ _Of course they are. Only the best of the best get to perform on Kaoru’s stage. And you’re going to be his crown jewel tonight, for his biggest party of the year! It’s quite an honor, you know_ _.”_

Kyo swallowed, watching the courtesans swirl about. “ _It’s… it’s not **that** big of a deal, is it? I mean… it’s only one song; it takes like five minutes… they’ve been out there much longer, doing all kinds of different performances. I’ll just be an afterthought._ ”

Toshiya broke his gaze on the dancers to raise an eyebrow at Kyo. “ _Are you serious?_ _Haven’t you seen the Nutcracker ballet?_ ”

Kyo blinked. “ _Well… yeah, I guess, on television_ …”

“ _A whole cast of ballet dancers; the finest of their trade if you’ve been watching the televised troupes. From the Christmas party and the fight between the Nutcracker’s soldiers and the Mouse King’s mice in the first act, to the Chinese tiger attendants and Moorish couples and spring flowers in the second, nothing short of beautiful. But you know who always, **always** gets the biggest round of applause at the end_?”

Kyo swallowed, fearing he knew the answer, but tried for something a little less harrowing. “ _Clara and the Nutcracker prince_?”

“ _Nope. They get more total cheering, but that’s just because they step forward for it more often. ‘s the Peacock, every fucking time. The only dancer in the show who does an entire dance alone, and that sticks with people – it’s striking instead of overwhelming like the group dances can be. Tonight, you’re our peacock_.”

“… _oh_ …” Kyo made an odd little gurgling sound from the back of his throat, backing away slowly from the end of the curtain. “ _Can… can you excuse me, I… I think I’m going to go throw up_ …”

Toshiya grinned as the courtesans began to file off the stage, the front curtain pulling closed even as the central one opened up. “ _No can do, little brother, it’s time. Don’t worry so much, we’ve practiced this a million times. You’ll be_ _brilliant!”_

Kyo swallowed nervously as the lights on the stage went a deep, rich blue and the front curtains began to slide open once again. _“Wait, no, what if I throw up on the stage? What if I forget my lines?_ _What if I trip and bite my tongue off and bleed out_ _?!”_

“ _Go, do me proud! I’ll be right here waiting for you when you finish_ _.”_

Kyo swore to himself and took a deep, stabilizing breath, closing his eyes for just a moment to get himself into the proper mindset. Luckily, for this part, it was okay if he looked a little afraid. As fog machines kicked on from either side of the stage, washing the entire floor with a thick, rolling mist, he began his walk out.

The azure lights caught on the pristine white silk of his heavy kimono and haori, dancing across the delicate silver spiderwebs embroidered over them and illuminating him brightly against the dark, sullen backdrop of a winter forest. Everything about him – from the fresh pale blonde of his hair, obscuring half of his face, to the slight quiver of his lower lip as his mouth parted in wonder, to the straining wideness of his ice-blue eyes – simply screamed innocence. Prayer bells rang once and a deep, low sound like a howling wind over the mouths of a thousand jars, or a trapped demon’s anguished moan, began to thrum overhead. His head came up at the sound, alert. A second beat pulsed slowly underneath the hum and he began to move with it almost unconsciously, each careful step starting to match the rhythm. Faint, eerie rattles and barely-there whispers flowed along underneath the moaning, hardly audible and all the more haunting for it, and he looked around himself again and again in obvious misgiving.

He began to pace back and forth, side to side, restlessly on the stage as if he were lost in the forest, the lights growing darker and darker as he passed deeper and deeper into the woods. Soft, indistinguishable voices, lilting as if singing or chanting, began to echo around him. Prayer bells chimed again, a sitar strummed a handful of faint chords, and he cast about himself with increasing anxiety. The voices got a little louder, some singing, some muffled but screaming, teasing just at the edge of the senses, and he came to a stop on the far left edge of the stage. He hunched over there, swaying back and forth to the beat of the steady thrumming, clutching the sides of his head as if to drive away madness.

The lights went low on the rest of the stage, leaving only him illuminated in a weak blue spotlight. It remained that way for a moment, the voices getting louder still, before a second, crimson spotlight came alive over the other side of the stage. Kyo’s head snapped around, startled, to look at the wicked-looking half-mask of a devil resting on a tall stone that had been illuminated. He stared at it as if entranced, and the music narrowed down to only the haunting moan as he slowly crossed the stage towards it. His hands reached out, shaking, as if possessed by some unseen force.

The split second his fingers closed around the mask, thunder crashed overhead, and he snapped back into a torturous arch, head thrown back in a piercing, drawn out scream of pure anguish that sent shivers down the spine of his audience, causing more than a couple to gasp. Drums began to beat powerfully, a pair of electric guitars and bass stalking ominously in a rhythmic pulse alongside them, and the lights overhead started to flash slowly between blue and red. Kyo was thrown into a frenzied motion, his body flinging itself back and forth across the stage in time to the new music, the hand with the mask leading the way as if dragging him. He fought its pull, his face awash with fear and confusion, but he couldn’t resist the cursed thing’s will. Even in the throes of apparent chaos, his movements held an inherent grace, following the every fluctuation of the music as if his very body was powered by the beat of it, turning the struggle for life and soul into a wild dance.

The music changed again, the guitars now sounding a persistent repetition of chords no less ominous than the rolling beat had been, and the lights started to flash much more quickly. Demonic hands came out from behind the trees, grabbing at his clothes, ripping his haori off of him in pieces as if claws were tearing through the cloth. He clutched his kimono to himself with his free hand desperately as the hands began catching at the ties of his obi. He pushed at them, shaking his head with a look of pure terror and madness, spinning and stumbling and spinning and stumbling as the belt was unwound, disappearing into the horrible darkness between the trees. He spun his way frantically back to the center of the stage, falling to his knees as the last of his obi was pulled free.

As he hit the floor, Kyo brought the mask up to stare into its empty eyes, bending back, back, back. The music shifted again, dropping to a less intense, more mysterious sort of tune, and the lights turned to steady, deep violet. The drums were deep, but slower, and a single guitar thrummed on alone as the back of his head touched the floor behind him, his spine in an impossible bend, and he turned the mask slowly, bringing it down to fix it over the top half of his face. A preternatural calm seemed to take over him. His shoulders rolled once, shrugging off the unbound kimono, and he rose with a deadly grace to his feet. He wore now only the mask, and what had been hidden under his white clothing; a heavy black hakama and an intricate webbing of ropes around his otherwise bare torso, their ends disappearing tellingly below the waistband of the garment.

The second guitar chimed back in, lilting and dangerously mischievous, and the demon tested out its new body. Long arms reached up over his head with a sensual roll, full lips pulled into a wicked grin, and his hips twisted his torso decadently with the rhythm of the music. He made a great show of enjoying his form, luxuriating in and subsequently showing off the graceful lines of his musculature, before flinging his arms out to the side and throwing his head back as the music picked back up once more. Amplified by a discrete microphone mounted on the bottom edge of the mask, his voice echoed out through the ballroom – uncommonly strong, surprisingly deep and smooth as sin – as he began to sing in Russian as if it were a mythical, abyssal language.

 **“Vertigo – Eve, Adam, excruciation – sacrifice apostle – God pain, be born. Vertigo – Eve, Adam, excruciation – sacrifice apostle – God pain, be born!”** His head came forward, eyes bright behind the mask with a look of the most wicked delight. As if noticing the audience for the first time, he reached out a beckoning hand and began advancing toward the front of the stage, swaying his hips enticingly with the beat of the music, his voice coming now in a deep growl. **“Blood – blood –** _ **taste**_ **… Blood – blood –** _ **taste**_ **… Blood – blood –** _ **taste**_ **… Blood – blood –** _ **taste**_ **… Blood – blood –** _ **taste**_ **… Blood – blood –** _ **taste**_ **… Blood – blood –** _ **taste**_ **… Blood – blood –** _ **TASTE**_ ** _!”_** He reached the forward edge of the stage and leaned forward, leering as the final word rumbled out of him. **“** _ **Naught**_ **…”**

The music and the lights cut out, and Kyo took a single step back to avoid being trapped by the curtain as it swung closed in front of him, panting as he was finally removed from the public eye once more. He wasn’t entirely sure if the sound he heard was applause or his own blood rushing in his ears. The latter seemed more likely as he flipped the switch on his mask’s microphone and staggered off the stage, heart pounding in his chest, feeling more than a little lightheaded.

_‘Done… finally, done… I did it…’_

He grunted when a heavy body crashed into him from the side, long arms flinging themselves around him and lifting him to spin him in a wild circle.

“ _Little brother, you were **amazing!** You did it just perfectly! Oh I just knew you’d do well, I knew it, you were beautiful!_” Toshiya hissed excitedly in his ear. “ _Come on now, come on! Let’s get you into your jacket so you can take your bows and join the rest of the party! Oh, I’m just so proud of you_!”

Kyo let the older man wrap him in a simple black happi jacket with Kaoru’s spider emblem emblazoned across the back in dark purple stitching. Someone pressed an open water bottle into his hands and he drank from it greedily as Toshiya tied his belt for him. He was shaking a bit, both from exertion and from nerves. Now that the dance was over, he had to go do the hard part; socializing with a room full of powerful mafia constituents. If the ice he was to skate around them was even _half_ as thin as that around Kaoru, he was reasonably certain he’d be dead before the night was through, and in spite of Toshiya’s best efforts, he felt completely unprepared for the ordeal. Social skills had never been his strong point. The courtesans took their turns bowing to the audience, one by one, before descending the stage stairs to mingle with the partygoers.

“ _You’re so tense! Relax, you’ll be fine. Just flirt a little, flatter people and bullshit with them, maybe dance with a few of them if Kao gives you permission. You can have all the drinks you want, but try to avoid the desserts and snacks that are floating around, they’re for the guests_.”

" _I’m just going to stay with Master Kaoru and let Him do the talking_ …" Kyo blinked, the mention of food catching his drifting attention. “ _Wait, ‘dessert’? Does that mean everybody already ate_ _?”_

“ _Yeah, I told you before, remember? Dinner and a show, then the orchestra sets up on stage for socialization and drinks_.”

“ _But then… when do we_ …?” Kyo’s nerves had kept him from eating much at breakfast, but now that the performance was finally over, he found that he was _starving_.

Toshiya’s smile was sympathetic. “ _On our own time, so probably tomorrow. We’re ornaments tonight, kitten; we’ll only eat when the sight of us eating is what entertains whoever we end up with, and even then it’s usually only things like chocolate-covered strawberries or fancy little mousses. Things we can play with a little for them_.”

Kyo cringed unhappily, but he couldn’t help but notice the inclusive wording of the older man’s explanation. “ _Even you_?”

“ _Even me. I act as a courtesan as well when the occasion demands it, even if I don’t take anyone to bed afterwards any more. All of us have to spend the evening flirting, pouring sake, telling stories… making sure Kaoru’s guests stay fat and happy_.”

“ _But… He doesn’t even like some of these people… half of the profiles you had me study were enemies of the family_ _!”_

Toshiya’s smile twisted into a smirk. “ _Those are the ones we show off for the most. We show them that we are skilled, that we’re beautiful, that we’re Kaoru’s, and most of all, we show them that **we are not afraid of them**. We have them here in our home, spoil them with our riches, even let them stay the night if they want, as if they’re **nothing.** That casual disregard is enough to make most of them think twice about messing with us_.”

Kyo frowned worriedly. “…‘ _most of them’? What about the others_ _?”_

“ _It flushes them out. Gets them bold enough to make their moves, so we can slap their punk asses back down_.” Toshiya grinned. “ _Kaoru’s bravado is well deserved. Stay on your guard, though. You flirt, you charm, you play the game with them, but don’t promise anything, and don’t accept any favors that can be turned into debts later. Everyone knows who you belong to, and a lot of them will respect it, but some will try to use you to get to Kaoru_.”

Kyo wanted very much to ask more questions. He didn’t really understand the politics of the room he was about to walk into, even if he had reasonable knowledge of most of the key players, and Toshiya's parting comment was damn unnerving. But the last of the courtesans had taken their bows and moved out into the ballroom, and Toshiya was shoving him back onto the stage, so he had no choice but to let the matter drop. He moved to center stage and bowed deeply, shivering a little at the zealous applause he received, then stood and removed his mask, bowing once more before descending the stairs to mingle with the audience.

_‘I feel like I’m wading into the ocean…’_

_‘When the water is full of sharks.’_

 

 


	26. Chapter 26

Kyo found himself in a sea of people a head or more taller than himself. At least a dozen people had moved forward to offer him greetings and praise, and his head spun as he bowed again and again, faces and names flying past him in a flurry while he murmured his humble thanks. Even with everyone wearing formal suits, he’d never seen so many tattoos in his life. He struck out as best he could, keeping the stage at his back in the hopes that he’d eventually make it to the slightly raised section on the far side of the room where Kaoru’s table was supposed to be. It was a difficult trip; people were constantly stopping him to comment on his performance, to try to chat him up, and he had to stop for every one of them to bow, thank them, and excuse himself as politely as he possibly could.

_‘Toshiya **did** warn me, I guess…’_

It took almost twenty minutes to get to the table designated for the master of the house, and he couldn’t hold back a sigh of relief when he found that Kaoru was still at the table, sitting in a simple wooden chair like it was a throne rather than out somewhere in the mix on the floor. With everyone else in the room getting up to socialize following their dinners and the stage show, he’d been worried he’d spend the night searching for the man. As he approached, he frowned a little, searching the floor around his master, unable to find his customary cushion to settle on.

“Ah, there you are. I was starting to worry you’d gotten lost,” Kaoru chuckled, holding out one arm in invitation. “Come here, pet, I saved you some dinner.”

Kyo allowed himself to be guided into Kaoru’s lap without fuss. He ate his meals there most days, and though it was a touch awkward to do so in public, it was far better than standing all evening. His legs were already shaking. “Toshiya said I’m not supposed to eat tonight unless I’m trying to entertain someone…”

Kaoru raised an eyebrow, amused. “Oh really? And between Toshiya and myself, who do you imagine gets to decide your eating schedule?”

Kyo couldn’t argue with that. He rested against the older man’s shoulder, gratefully accepting the food that he was offered. For a few minutes, there was silence as he ate and rested, drinking heavily from the iced green tea his master had ordered for him as he felt a little bit of stability return to his limbs.

Then Kaoru’s voice came in a sly murmur in his ear as he dragged the pad of his thumb over Kyo’s bottom lip. “Besides, why do you think I do this every day? I’m very ‘entertained’ by just about everything you do with that mouth.”

The blonde very nearly choked on his food. In public – or at least, in front of Kaoru’s friends, which was as ‘in public’ as Kyo had been until now – his master was usually unfailingly polite. Everyone knew exactly what their relationship was, but it typically went unspoken. Looking up at the older man, he noticed Kaoru’s eyes were just a little softer than usual, and recognized the faint smell hovering around him. “You’re… drunk?”

“A little. Keeps me sane when the sycophants come calling,” Kaoru grumbled, gesturing irritably at the room, then smirked. “It’s a good thing I’ve been pacing myself, though. If I was just the slightest bit drunker, I’d have you bent over this table already, after that performance. I'd almost forgotten you can sing.”

Kyo blushed and opened his mouth to respond, but before he could speak, movement from the corner of his eye alerted him to someone approaching them. He glanced over, and immediately found himself shrinking against Kaoru just a bit. A looming form, rivaling even Die and Toshiya’s impressive height; long black hair pulled into a loose ponytail; tattoos from his ears down to the tips of his fingers, all done in black and crimson. More notably, a smug mouth and one cold, cruel eye, the other sealed shut and bisected by a nasty vertical scar. He recognized the man from one of the profile sheets Toshiya had given him, one that he’d put particular care into memorizing. Toshiya had very specifically warned Kyo to avoid Takashi Soejima, and Kyo had required no further warning, unsettled by even the man’s image on a piece of paper. 

Soejima was remarkable in that he and Kaoru were very nearly the same age. They were the youngest leaders in the room, controlled two of the most powerful families, and most importantly, they were _not_ friends. Though they’d never confronted one another overtly, Kaoru had been going back and forth for years with the man, nipping and shoving at one another’s territory, and the rivalry was a decidedly bitter one. Whispers hinted at a war soon to break out between the two families, when the men’s hatred for one another finally broke past the knowledge that they were too closely matched for such a feud to end without substantial bloodshed on both sides. 

Kyo felt Kaoru tense beneath him, saw his master's face twist into a smug mockery of a welcoming smile, deadly black eyes bright and challenging.

“Such a pleasure to see you, Mr. Soejima. I had begun to worry you wouldn’t make it this year,” Kaoru purred.

“Now now, Mr. Niikura, you know I would never miss your Christmas party. I don't care who thinks such displays are ostentatious, one can always count on you to put on a good show.” Soejima’s voice was a smooth rumble, cultured and disgustingly cocksure. “And I'm sure your throne is more than secure enough that you can afford to take funds from your security measures to pay for such talented courtesans.”

“Why yes, it is, thank you. And I'm so pleased that you could see the show. I asked them to put your table right up front, since your depth perception has been somewhat… _lacking_ in recent years.”

Kyo saw the man’s smirk twitch, fury flashing for just the barest second in his one remaining eye.

_‘They’re like… **wolves** circling one another…’_

He shivered as Soejima’s cold gaze landed on himself, and kept his own eyes carefully averted.

“So kind of you to remind me, I never properly thanked you for that. I certainly saw this one well enough, though. You’ve been somewhat spoiled in the company you keep, if the rumors are to be believed. I’m not so certain I do.”

“Oh? And what rumors might those be?”

“Silly nonsense, all of them. They say your Mr. Andou can shoot the wings off a fly, your Mr. Hara can charm a nun from her habit, and your Mr. Terachi can coax gold out of iron. Tell me, young man, how is it that you fit amongst such presumed quality?”

Kyo swallowed a bit, glancing up at Kaoru. His master was watching him with an encouraging smirk, no hint of warning on his face to suggest that he should keep his silence. The tension in the air was almost too thick to breathe through, and he worried that if the two men kept taking verbal jabs at one another, it would end in violence. He somehow felt that it was his responsibility to prevent that, to lighten the mood as best he could while still fulfilling his duties as a "status symbol." He could only pray he didn’t make things worse.

Boldly raising his gaze to meet the man’s stare dead-on, he smiled and quipped sweetly, “Well, sir… they say I can scream a banshee into shame… and that I can suck a golf ball through a bendy straw.”

There was a moment of surprise, and the tension reached its peak as silence stretched awkwardly before it simply… broke. Kaoru chuckled fondly, kissing his pet’s hair, and Soejima’s settled into a less aggressive stance with his hip propped against the table, apparently amused and decidedly curious. Kyo did his absolute best to swallow a sigh of relief at having played that properly, but there was nothing to be done about the faint blush on his cheeks.

“Well then, you are a spoiled man indeed, Niikura. Ah, but we should be celebrating the holidays shouldn’t we? Little banshee, perhaps you would do me the honor of joining me on the dance floor?”

Kyo froze.

_‘…Oh fuck me…’_

_‘Is he serious?!’_

_‘What do I do?!’_

Toshiya’s voice surfaced in his mind, telling him what he very much did not want to hear.

_-“Just flirt a little, flatter people and bullshit with them, maybe dance with a few of them.”-_

_-“Most of all, we show them that **we are not afraid of them**.”-_

_‘…’_

_‘I **am** afraid of him!’ _

_‘But if Master Kaoru needs me to fake it…’_

_‘Fuck me… I should have never left the bedroom…’_

He bowed his head as graciously as he could. “If… if it pleases my Master.”

Kaoru looked for a moment like he might flat out refuse, and Kyo prayed that he would, counting on his master’s notorious possessive streak to keep him safe. Soejima spooked him down to his very bones; he did not want to be around the man without Kaoru’s protection, and he sure as hell didn’t want the man touching him. Kaoru and Soejima weren't at eachother's throats anymore, which was a relief, but now Soejima’s attention was on _him_ , and he couldn't help but feel like the man knew exactly where his soft, vulnerable spots would be. Fate, as usual, laughed in his face before smacking his hopes back down.

“Oh, I’m sure he can stand to part with you for a simple dance. It is the season of sharing, after all, is it not?”

After that, Kaoru couldn’t deny him and still maintain the fragile pretense of hospitality. He smiled – though Kyo saw the bitterness behind it – and nodded. “But of course.”

Kyo mentally screamed every curse word in every language that he knew, even managing to fuse a few together into entirely new ones, as he accepted Soejima’s hand and let himself be lead out onto the dance floor. It took everything he had to keep from shaking as the taller man wrapped an over-familiar arm around his waist and he, as propriety demanded, rested his hand on that arm. Their other hands joined, and they began to move unhurriedly about the dance floor to the rhythm of the orchestra’s unobtrusive music. Kyo couldn’t help but glance back toward his master, who was watching them with a particularly dark scowl now that his rival’s back was turned.

_‘Hell… at least… at least it’s in the middle of a crowded room.’_

_‘What’s the worst this guy can do to me here?’_

“You put on a wonderful show.”

Kyo startled a little, looking up at the man.

“It reminded me very much of the kabuki play, Kagami Jishi, only with a dark, modern sort of flare that was very striking. Your dance was quite moving, and your singing was simply exquisite.”

Kyo averted his eyes, uncomfortable with the praise paired with the man’s overbearing scrutiny. “Thank you, sir, I’m… glad that it pleased you.”

“Very much so. Ah, how rude of me, I didn’t even think to ask for your name.”

“Oh, I… It… it’s Kyo.”

Soejima looked amused. “Just Kyo?”

_‘To give a devil your true name…’_

“Aa, just Kyo.”

“Hmm… it suits you, I suppose. You know, Kyo… I can feel the jute ropes through your clothing. I imagine Niikura wrapped you like this to remind you throughout the evening to whom you belong?”

Kyo stiffened, eyes slightly wide, as Soejima ran a bold finger across the bottom edge of one the ropes wrapped around his waist. He tried his best to mask his discomfort, his voice taking on a slightly warning tone. “Aa… Master Kaoru is very possessive.”

“That he is. I’ve always wondered how he manages to keep the company he does, given his penchant for disloyalty and cruelty. The man murdered his own brother in cold blood to inherit his organization, you know? And those three goons of his never stop to think he might do the same to them one day. Perhaps his lieutenants are just as depraved as he is, but you seem somewhat more… innocent. Far too sweet for someone like him, if I may be so bold. I should very much like to see how far down those ropes go.”

Kyo tried to pull back even just a little, but found the arm around him completely unyielding and fought to keep himself composed. “I’m very sorry, but I doubt He would allow that."

“I really like the way you scream,” Soejima murmured, far too intimately against his ear.

Kyo bristled, nervous. “I… I’m sorry?”

“When you were on stage. There was so much pain in it… so much despair, even for a performance. One can only imagine how you scream when you are truly in agony.”

Kyo shivered, his temper flaring in self-defense. “It's a shame you’ll never know.”

Soejima’s arm tightened abruptly, crushing the younger man against his chest even as he mouthed teasingly at the soft shell of the blonde’s ear. “You have something of a smart mouth, little banshee. Perhaps Niikura has been too soft on you, and you don’t fully understand your place?”

Kyo gasped, suddenly unable to breathe as his ribs were compressed against the taller man’s chest. He jerked his head away from the man’s mouth and tried to push away from him. “S-… sto-… I ca-…!”

“You know, taking things from Niikura has become something of a hobby of mine. I should dearly love to steal you from him and teach you how to behave yourself around your betters. He would never risk starting anything with me over a single whore. The way you bend, the way you shake… you have a delicious body. It would be a pleasure to drown in your screams, to use you until you were nothing more than a bloody, broken husk before dumping you back on his doorstep.”

Soejima waited until Kyo’s vision started to swim before loosening his hold enough for the younger man to breathe, his eye bright with enjoyment for the blonde’s struggle. Kyo heard the soft sound of metal sliding and paled, ceasing his struggles and staring up at the man in horror as something hard and damned sharp came to rest against his spine, under Soejima’s wrist.

“This dance floor is a bit crowded, don’t you think? Perhaps we should find somewhere more private to continue our talk…?”

_‘Is that a knife?!’_

_‘He… he’s going to kill me!’_

_‘Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods!’_

“Excuse me?”

He could have cried in relief as the man’s face dropped from a smug, almost sadistic little smirk to an irritated frown as Shinya tapped on his shoulder.

“Can I help you, Mr. Terachi?”

Shinya smiled, his eyes unusually hard, and bowed. “It’s a new song, Mr. Soejima, I was wondering if I might steal your partner for this next dance?”

Kyo saw the older man fight the same battle with propriety that Kaoru had earlier, and lose it just the same way. He couldn't put up a fuss here without drawing attention from the entire room. The blade at Kyo's back disappeared with a barely-audible click and he was released, moving quickly to hide halfway behind Shinya’s willowy frame. Soejima eyed both of them disdainfully for a moment, adjusting the cuffs of his tuxedo jacket, then gave a poisonous smile.

“Perhaps another time then. I’m sure we’ll see each other again soon.”

He was able to hold out until Soejima was out of sight before his legs gave out beneath him. It was all too much. He was tired, he was hungry, and now he was terrified for what so nearly could have happened, what still might happen if the man made good on his promise. Shinya caught him easily, all-but carrying him to the nearest table, tucked away in a blessedly secluded corner, to catch his breath.

"Gods, I hate that man…" The auburn-haired man sat him down in a chair and put a hand on his shoulder. “I heard that blade of his. Are you alright? Did he hurt you at all?”

Kyo shook his head. “N-No, but I think… I think he was going to…”

Shinya sighed. “He probably was. I’m sorry I didn’t cut in sooner.”

Kyo looked up at the older man, eyes wide. “I’m just glad you came when you did. Thank you.”

Shinya smiled. “Any time. Just try to stay clear of Soejima, alright? With things the way they are between him and Kaoru, we might not be able to help you in time if things get out of hand. We can’t really afford a war with him.”

Kyo nodded quickly. He didn’t need to be told twice; he’d never wanted to be around the man in the first place, and now he only had more reason to stay clear of him. To hell with propriety, he would not be dancing with Takashi Soejima ever again. Any punishment Kaoru might deem necessary for the rudeness had to be better than what Soejima seemed to have in mind.

“Can you walk, or do we need to find you someplace to rest? Kaoru and Die are both looking for you, but I’m sure they’ll understand if you need a break.”

Kyo shook his head and stood slowly, using the table to push himself up. “I'm fine. I just… haven’t eaten much today.”

Shinya gave an odd little half-smile at the obvious bluff, but seemed to think better of mentioning it. “Alright. At least you’ve met the worst of them; the rest of the party should be a breeze.”

And it was. Shinya delivered him back to Kaoru – who was still fuming and significantly drunker by this point, a condition which Kyo chose not to exacerbate by relating his near miss – and he was more than happy to sit in his master’s lap and be fed his dinner without further interruption. People came and went to speak to Kaoru, offering thanks and praise for the party, hinting at favors or partnerships they might want with him, but by and large Kyo was left alone. The few times that guests did try to talk to him, Kaoru spoke for him, fondly, possessively, leaving no room for doubt in anyone’s mind that he was not interested in sharing any further this evening.

He made an exception later in the night only for Die, who came up and demanded a birthday dance with the star of the show. Kyo was feeling much better by that point, and he found himself actually enjoying dancing with the redhead. Die was not the best dancer in the world, but he was just enjoying the party so much, his demeanor entirely carefree, and his enthusiasm was infectious. At the end of the song, Kaoru came out and took his best friend’s place. Die made a big show of being disappointed, until Toshiya came over and, with uncustomary shyness, asked him to dance.

The redhead laughed, obviously finding the idea terribly novel, and accepted, and Toshiya’s face lit up with ill-disguised joy. As Kaoru spun him languidly around the dance floor, Kyo heard Die’s confused murmur wondering who should lead, and couldn’t help but smile just a little at Toshiya’s answering chuckle. After a month spent witnessing first-hand just how hopelessly besotted the blue-haired man was with Kaoru’s head of security, Kyo was glad that Toshiya could at least enjoy this much. As for himself, he was plenty content to stay with Kaoru and let his master's possessive glare keep the sharks at bay.

It wasn’t until many hours later, into the wee hours of the morning, that Kyo finally got to return to the safe haven of Kaoru’s quarters. Thankfully, mansion staff had seen to accommodating those guests who weren’t going home until the next day, but he’d still had to stand at his master’s side as Kaoru bade farewell to each visitor in turn. He was less than half awake as they went through their usual nighttime ritual, and he found himself hoping maybe Kaoru would let him sleep in the big bed tonight. His body ached, and the thought of the hard floor in his corner was disheartening.

“Don’t fall asleep on me now, pet. I have a surprise for you,” Kaoru murmured, less drunk and more sleepy now.

“Mph?”

“Your Christmas present. You did so well tonight, especially with Soejima, I had it sent up for you a little early as a reward.”

Kyo blinked, just slightly more awake now, as Kaoru opened up the door to his room. His eyes went wide and his lips parted, shocked. Against the right-hand wall, next to his bathroom, a dressing cabinet stood, large enough to hold an entire wardrobe. One of its lower drawers was open to reveal a full selection of different colors and styles of pants and hakama. After so long wearing only whatever Kaoru handed him, the freedom to choose his own clothing day to day was a vast change.

He didn’t care about that at the moment, though.

Right then, all he saw was the thick, decadently plush bed tucked into his usual sleeping corner, identical to the one he had ruined so long ago. A heavy blanket was folded neatly on top of it, a fluffy pillow resting tucked into one side, and when he went to his knees and pressed his hands into it, he was met with just the perfect amount of cushy resistance. He couldn't even find it in himself to care that it was shaped like a dog bed anymore. It was a bed of his very own, it was glorious, and he was speechless in awe of it.

"With how hard you’ve been working lately, we can't very well have you sleeping on the floor every night, now can we? See if you can keep this one intact."

“It's… Kaoru, I…” He looked back at his master, unable to find the words for his gratitude.

Kaoru simply smiled. “Merry Christmas, Kyo.”

 

 


	27. Chapter 27

“Kyo…” Kaoru’s voice came, low and heavy with warning.

Kyo shivered at the sound of his name issued in such a dark, menacing tone, but steadfastly held his ground. The unspoken threat of punishment should he cross too far over the line was _almost_ enough to make the blonde doubt his decision – Kaoru wouldn’t kill him over it, he knew, but Time Out was an ever-effective deterrent of misbehavior, and he was loathe to risk the few freedoms he’d worked so hard to earn – but the decision had been made with sound reasoning and there was no turning back now. He didn’t trust his own voice not to crack under the strain, so he kept his silence, but he met his master’s gaze and stared it down doggedly.

_‘Don’t be angry.’_

_‘Please don’t be angry.’_

“Are you going to give me what I want, or do you require another lesson on obedience?”

Kyo felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, but all he did in response was narrow his eyes and shake his head resolutely. Kaoru reached again for the unopened bottle of beer in his pet’s unyielding grip, and Kyo hid it further behind his back, pushing a glass of water into his master’s hand instead.

He barely managed to keep his voice steady as he insisted, “You don’t want to spend Christmas morning hungover, do you? Drink the water, then you can have it.”

Kaoru’s irritated gaze flicked down to the water glass briefly, as if considering.

Kyo pressed his luck a little further, his eyes softening from the challenge and turning somewhat doleful. “…Please? I hate to see you so sick and unhappy…”

“…Oh, Jesus Christ,” Kaoru sighed, perhaps a bit more dramatically than was really necessary, and snatched the water glass out of Kyo’s hand, tipping his head back and draining it with one long pull. When he was finished, he held it up and shook it sardonically at his pet to prove it was empty. “There. Happy now, you little hen?”

_‘…!’_

_‘It worked!’_

_‘Maybe now He won’t be so miserable in the morning.’_

A deferential nod, and the barest hint of a smile. “Yes, Master.”

To be honest, Kyo _was_ rather pleased at the victory. More and more as time went by, he found himself carefully testing the curious sort of sway he seemed to have over his master. He liked to see how much he could get away with so long as his intentions were still ultimately in Kaoru’s favor, as well as how much of an effect he had on the man based on his facial expressions, tone of voice, or posturing. Kaoru was almost certainly aware of the little games, of course, but the fact that he indulged Kyo in them was telling in its own right. He took the empty water glass from Kaoru’s hand and replaced it with the beer bottle.

“Thank you,” Kaoru grumbled, more amused than he maybe wanted to admit.

From one side, a low voice singsonged teasingly, “Whiiipped…”

Die, seated next to Kaoru on the couch, got an elbow in the ribs in response, but laughed the halfhearted blow off. It was late Christmas Eve, and the three of them plus Toshiya and Shinya were gathered in Kaoru’s living room, bundled comfortably in sweat clothes and pajamas after a day spent playing around in the near-meter of fresh snow piled outside. When dark had fallen, they’d retired to the master suite to watch Christmas movies and play board games. The living room alone was decorated for the holiday, and almost garishly so, with garlands and blinking lights along every straight edge, mistletoe over the doorway, and a tree tucked in the corner whose limbs bowed dangerously under the weight of so many ornaments. It had been Die’s pet project the night before.

Everyone seemed to have relaxed from their usual roles and pretenses. Toshiya and Kaoru had forsaken contact lenses for thick-rimmed glasses, their hair in disarray from playing in the snow. Shinya and Die looked rather like gawky teenagers out of their customary suits, their slender limbs appearing spindly under loose tee shirts and cotton pants. Looking in, one would never guess they were anything more than a handful of twenty-something bachelors getting together for a low-key stag Christmas.

Kyo, for his part, was unusually busy for a Friday night, and he had been all week. Following the Christmas party, almost all of the mansion staff had been sent home to their families for the holidays, leaving only a barebones staff of ten volunteer security enforcers to monitor the premises. All of the cooks and housekeepers were gone for nearly two weeks, until after New Year’s, which left Kyo the tasks of cleaning and cooking for his master each day in addition to his regular duties. The small kitchen in the master suite had been fully stocked for the occasion, and he had some experience cooking for two, so it had hardly been a daunting chore for him, but it did take some adjustment. Tonight, he was in charge of feeding all four of them, as well as fetching drinks.

Besides the little hiccup caused by his efforts to spare his master a hangover, and in spite of his temporary relegation to housekeeping duties, Kyo had to admit that he was rather enjoying himself. He’d had spent the last few years’ worth of holidays on his own – since Kisaki had typically gone back to Kyoto every year to celebrate with his parents – so a Christmas that wasn’t spent moping in an empty apartment was a stark change of pace for him. It had been fun spending the day outside, goofing off in snow-filled gardens with his ‘brothers’ and his master, particularly since the others seemed more than happy to involve him in everything they did and treated him as nothing more and nothing less than a younger sibling; one to be coveted, protected, and teased mercilessly.

The atmosphere had been nothing but jovial all day long, everyone in high spirits and frequently indulging in cheerful fits of immaturity. Lounging around the living room now, in sweat pants with full bellies and nothing to do, was a treat as well. He’d even been allowed to pick a movie for their little marathon. After Kaoru’s selection of The Nightmare Before Christmas, he’d felt hardly any hesitance in selecting Gremlins, and no one even seemed to consider begrudging him his holiday favorite. It was the most… _included_ he’d felt in any group in a very, very long time.

Kaoru grabbed his pet by the waistband and dragged the younger man down onto the couch between himself and Die, hissing playfully in his ear, “C’mere, you brat. Sit down and shut up before you get yourself in trouble.”

Kyo, recognizing the now-familiar tone of his master’s teasing, simply allowed himself to be pulled down and relaxed against the older man’s side. Familiar fingers threaded through his hair, and he wondered if his presence would be missed all that terribly if he fell asleep. His sun always went down by ten-thirty; it was surprisingly hard to stay up any later than that anymore.

_‘Not like I talk all that much anyways…’_

_‘They probably wouldn’t even notice…’_

_‘…Mn, but I have to make sure they don’t get hungry or thirsty.’_

“Man, this movie is terrible,” Toshiya groused from his spot on the other couch, lounging with his head on Shinya’s lap. “Who picked this?”

“That would be you, Totchi,” Shinya reminded him with a smile.

“It’s awful! It’s like a… a romantic comedy written by a freaking Amish virgin who accidentally saw his own dick one day an- oh, wait… hold up now…” Toshiya sat up, grinning madly. “Oh man, are they going to… HAHA, YES! Boning on Christmas! Oh, this is awesome, was this a porn or something? What shelf was it on?!”

“At least it explains the bad acting,” Shinya put in.

“And yet, it seems the sex is even more awkward than the dialogue,” Kaoru observed wryly. “Not sure how they manage to fuck up one-syllable lines…”

“Haha, holy shit! I don’t think that’s where that goes, buddy!” Die crowed.

“It’s not where she was hoping it’d go, anyways,” Toshiya cackled.

Shinya blanched. “Oh wow… that looks sort of uncomfortable…”

Kaoru cocked his head. "Points to the girl for keeping on her game face, though."

Die was about to say something else, when a cheerful beep from a timer on top of the television cut him off. He was on his feet in a heartbeat – staggering just a bit – eyes wide and overjoyed as he lunged across the room and grabbed the device, brandishing it victoriously at the others. “IT’S CHRISTMAS!”

Kaoru chuckled indulgently. “So it is. Merry Christmas, guys.”

Toshiya and Shinya echoed the sentiment as Die snatched up a Santa hat from where it had been waiting on the coffee table and pulled it down around his ears with an eager grin. Toshiya, Shinya, and Kaoru seemed perfectly accustomed to the redhead’s zeal, sitting up and moving forward in their seats as he set himself into the pile of gifts around the tree. Kyo tucked himself back into the corner of the couch to watch, curious to see what was obviously something of a tradition for these men, as Die began handing out presents. There was a brief moment of quiet in that moment, only broken by the stilted moans of the unfortunate couple on the television, before the room exploded into a cacophony of noise and flying colored paper as they all began ripping into the gifts with little other preamble.

There was an oddly irreverent sort of affection that went into the havoc that was Christmas in the Niikura household. No one took turns politely unwrapping their gift as the others watched on to ooh and aah over each mundane little thing; every package was torn open almost simultaneously, bared to its owner’s eager gaze, and every joyous reaction was made particularly sweet by its obvious sincerity.

“This one’s for Shin-Baby from Kao!”

“Holy hell, this is amazing! Where did you get this?”

“Ah! It’s perfect; I know exactly where I’ll put it!”

“Haha, try it on, Totchi, see if it fits!”

“Here you go, Kaoru, it’s from me.”

“You haven’t seen that yet, have you?”

“Awesome! Let’s find some batteries and fire this thing up!”

“Here, Die, pull out that round one, with the green bow.”

“Oh thank you, thank you, Kao, I love it!”

“Did you see the extra little bit on the side? It comes out…”

Kyo was more than a little surprised to find a handful of gifts tumbling into his own lap as well. It was surreal, to see his name so carefully scrawled in four unfamiliar hands across bows, ribbons, and tags. Quietly, with hands that shook just a little, he unwrapped each package he was handed. A small collection of custom designed clothes from Toshiya. A handheld video game system and games from Die. An electronic book reader with a fair number of short horror stories and myths already loaded onto it from Shinya. A portable music player from Kaoru with a note promising they would fill it up tomorrow. He hadn’t really been expecting to receive any gifts, so to get ones with such thought placed into them… a decidedly sweet ache coiled in his chest.

_‘My brothers…’_

_‘Am I really… are they…’_

_‘My… family?’_

“This one’s mine!” Die called jovially. “From… Kyo?”

_‘Oh hell, he found them…’_

The utter bewilderment in Die’s voice brought the attention of the others back to him. Confined as he was to Kaoru’s quarters, without a penny to his name, and being somewhat unpredictable in his acceptance of his new life, the others had expected gifts from Kyo even less than he’d expected gifts from them. Die tugged loose the crimson strip of ribbon that had been so precisely tied around the tightly-rolled tube of paper, and unfolded the sheet with care. Toshiya, unable and unwilling to wait for the redhead to share what was on the paper, shuffled around to peer over his shoulder.

“‘Hermes – of guidance. Trickster patron of thieves and athletes, protector of travelers, interpreter between mortal and gods, conductor of lost souls to the Underworld. The Messenger,’” Die read slowly, then beamed. “It’s me!”

He held up the paper for Kaoru and Shinya. The front of the page had a meticulously rendered – though decidedly cartoonish – image of a man wearing winged sandals, apparently in mid-sprint. He held a caduceus in one hand and a lyre in the other, and wore only a loose cloth wrapped around his hips. Everything, from the man’s spiky faux-hawk to his purely mischievous grin to the scales carefully detailed on his right hand, indicated that it was intended to be an image of Die.

“Aw man, that’s cool! Is there one for me?” Toshiya demanded, pushing behind Die to look in the darker corner the little tube had been tucked into. “Yeah! We all get one!” He tossed similar papers to Kaoru and Shinya – wrapped in purple and gold ribbons respectively – and sat to undo the blue tie on his. “…Oooh, I look so _good!_ Mine says ‘Dionysus – of carnal delights.’ Oh my! ‘Protector of outcasts, patron of orgiastic excess and ecstasy, purveyor of spirits and theater. The Liberator.’”

Toshiya had been drawn with particular attention to androgyny, neither overtly male nor female. He was reclining, a leopard skin draped over his hips, with a vine of grapes dangling from one hand and a thyrsus in the other, a purely seductive smile across his face.

“‘Hades,’” Kaoru read, to no one’s surprise, “‘Of the Underworld. Patron of the dead, keeper of all the world’s wealth, ruling in darkness to maintain balance with unwavering authority. The Unseen.’”

Kaoru was drawn perhaps with more attention to detail than the others; understandable, considering how much more of him Kyo saw, and how much more attention the blonde paid him purely by force of habit. His tattoos were painstakingly recreated, as was the burn scar marring his chest. He was shown sitting regally on a macabre throne of skulls, a massive three-headed dog at his knee and an ornate helmet dangling casually from one hand.

There was an expectant pause before Die leaned over and prodded Shinya’s knee. “Hey, wake up. It’s your turn, who are you?”

Shinya cocked his head, a curious smile tugging at his lips. “‘Athena – of wisdom. Guide of heroes, embodiment of divine intelligence and tactical cunning, patron of inspiration and creativity. The Virgin.’”

Shinya had been rendered fairly effeminately – his hair drawn in a fall of delicate ringlets around his face – but quite obviously male under the armor he wore, which he rather appreciated. He stood ready with a spear in one hand while a snake wound its way up the opposite arm, a small owl perched stoically on his shoulder.

“Oh man, these are so freaking cool!”

“Ah, look! Look at my little wing sandals!”

“I look kinda good in leopard skin, ne?”

“Kyo, this is beautiful, I had no idea you could draw.”

“Hehe, it really captures Kao’s creepy stare, doesn’t it?”

“Shin-baby looks so pretty!”

Kyo sat quietly, his burning face hidden as much as he could manage behind the longer side of his bangs, as the other four exclaimed over the pictures just as excitedly as they had everything else. Drawing wasn’t really his strong suit, so it had taken a lot of very late nights to get the images anywhere near how he wanted them, with a fair collection of attempts torn up and crumpled in frustration. He also worried that, in the face of the caliber of gifts that the men got for one another, that his would seem paltry in comparison; that at best they’d be dismissed, at worst, patronized. More than once he’d considered taking the little tubes back out from under the tree before they could be seen.

Kaoru wrapped one hand loosely around the back of the blonde’s neck and leaned over to kiss the side of his head, murmuring softly just to him, “It’s exquisite, Kyo, thank you. You make me damn proud to call myself your master.”

Now… now he simply felt a deep-running shiver of something like satisfaction, to have contributed to all of their happiness. The more ways he found to endear himself to his master and his brothers – to make them happy, to be a part of the strange family – the better and more secure he found he felt about his place among them. It was nice to feel needed.

He spent the next hour or so curled contentedly against Kaoru’s side while the rest of the gifts were torn open and some were opened up to play with. Some artsy, noir horror movie that Toshiya had received replaced the terrible porno and Die popped open a bottle of very nice whiskey to share as the evening wound down to a close. Kaoru and Toshiya got into a drunken argument over the wording of the rules to Shinya’s new board game, and it ended in a wild, playful wrestling match that very nearly knocked over the Christmas tree, much to Die’s dismay. The more time that passed, the drunker and slower everyone became. It was close to three in the morning before the movie shut itself off and Kyo – dead sober but exhausted – looked around to find that Toshiya, Die, and Kaoru were absolutely dead to the world, and Shinya was close on their heels. Tamping down the temptation to follow suit, he extracted himself from Kaoru’s grip and blearily set to cleaning up the room.

First things first, he tucked a blanket around Kaoru, and removed the man’s glasses carefully. Then he did the same for Toshiya and Die, smiling to himself at how Toshiya had managed to weasel his way into Die’s lap to sleep cuddled against his chest with painfully endearing drunken pretense. The blue-haired man really did take every little bit he could get. He fetched a trash bag and set to collecting all the ribbons, bows, tags, and scraps and wads of wrapping paper that had been scattered into every corner of the room, sorting everyone’s gifts into separate piles as he went.

When he came back from shoving the bag down the trash chute in the kitchen, he was surprised to find the television was off and Shinya was moving silently about the room, collecting dirty dishes into a neat stack. Kyo collected all of the remaining beer bottles and together, they returned to the kitchen. He dumped the bottles down the chute and set to taking care of the dishes, and Shinya picked up a dishtowel, wordlessly taking up the task of drying as Kyo washed.

“I appreciate the help, but you don’t have to stay up,” the blonde pointed out. “This is supposed to be my job until the housekeepers come back, I think.”

Shinya shook his head, taking the first clean plate and drying it languidly before setting it up on its shelf. “I don’t mind. I can’t sleep with the place like this, knowing how much Kaoru hates it when it’s messy.”

“Aa, he does… Thanks.” Kyo bobbed his head a bit and continued with his work. “…I hope I didn’t offend you.”

“Hmm?”

“Drawing you as Athena.”

Shinya chuckled a bit. “Oh, no, not at all. None of the others know enough Greek mythology to realize she was a goddess, so I doubt they’ll give me any grief. It’s kind of flattering to be compared to her, actually.”

Kyo gave a faint smile. “I’m glad. I tried to find a god, but no one else seemed to suite you…”

"Mm. Did you draw yourself as well?"

"…Aa."

"As whom?"

"Sisyphus."

Shinya blinked. "Sisyphus… isn’t that the king who spends his afterlife pushing the same boulder up a hill over and over, because it falls back down every time he reaches the top?"

Kyo nodded. "He earned his punishment by being cruel and deceitful in life. I suppose my former life must have been misspent as well, to have earned everything that's happened in this one… but I never seem to learn to stop pushing the boulder up the hill. I know that there's nothing beautiful in the world, and that I'm ultimately a weak human being… but I still want to become strong, and happy. In spite of everything, as I live, I hope."

"That's… the most pessimistic and optimistic thing I think I've ever heard. You seem to have a gift for seeing two sides of a coin at once."

"Thanks."

He’d been sleepy before but now, without Kaoru taking his full attention, he got to thinking about the youngest and most mysterious of his brothers. This was the first time he’d ever really been alone with Shinya, one of a very small handful of occasions he spent more than just a few minutes in the man’s presence at all. Compared to all the time he’d spent with Toshiya and Die over the past month, it seemed a glaring lapse in his understanding of his new family, and all of the questions and suspicions he had about the man were starting to bubble up in the back of his mind. Something in Shinya spoke very profoundly to something in himself, and he wanted very much to know what it was.

Kyo cleared his throat a bit. “Can I ask you something, Shinya?”

Shinya smiled at him. As always, the expression had no effect on the perpetual neutrality of his eyes. “Of course.”

Kyo shifted his gaze down to stare at the bit of spaghetti sauce he was scrubbing off of a plate. “Why… why did you stay here?”

“Well, to help clean up. Like I said, I just hate leaving this place messy.”

“No, not tonight. Before, when you were freed. Did Kaoru make you, or…?”

Shinya cocked his head a bit as he accepted the plate. “What do you mean?”

Kyo took a breath and looked up, meeting the older man’s gaze and committing himself to something he might very well regret. “Five years ago, when Kaoru killed the old leader of this place… _your_ master… why did you stay?”

The sound of porcelain shattering was too sharp and too loud between them as the plate crashed to the floor, surrendered by Shinya’s abruptly slack grip. The air in the room seemed to thicken and become colder under a sudden, indefinable strain, as if the spirit of winter itself had crept in when no one was looking. Kyo felt his heart skip just a bit, and wondered if one of those ceramic shards would find itself buried in his chest before the night was through. If the anger and panic suddenly seething in Shinya’s eyes was any indication, it was a distinct possibility.

“Who told you that?” the auburn-haired man growled.

Kyo shrugged quickly, trying to make himself look as disarming as possible. “I just… guessed. Things you’ve said, things the others have said… your back… I just… He… he was Kaoru’s brother, wasn’t he? Don’t… don’t they look…? I mean, if he treated you so badly… if you look at Kaoru and always see… how can you stay here?”

Shinya’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and Kyo braced himself to bolt. But the older man seemed to catch himself, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, his body relaxing forcibly as he exhaled. His voice came out strained, shaking just the tiniest bit. “I don’t want to talk about it, it doesn’t matter. Whatever happened before, whatever I used to be, that’s not my life anymore, so it _doesn’t matter_.”

“I… I’m sorry, Shinya…I didn’t mean…”

Kyo’s apology fell on deaf ears. Shinya was gone. Distantly, he heard the entrance door to the master suite open and close, and he deflated against the counter.

“Shit.”

_‘I’m so selfish…’_

_‘I ruined his Christmas for my own curiosity.’_

_‘Gods, he looked so… **angry** …’_

_‘…So… why…?’_

 

 


	28. Chapter 28

_‘Alright, is everything accounted for?’_

_‘Burdock root, lotus root, shiitake: check, check, check.’_

_‘Shrimp, dried sardines, herring roe: check, check, check.’_

_‘Sweet potato and chestnuts, carrots and daikon: check and check.’_

_‘Fish cakes, sweet fish omelettes, black soybeans: check, check, check.’_

_‘Rice cake soup: check.’_

_‘Juubako: …’_

_‘...Oh hell… where are the boxes?!’_

Kyo scowled to himself and cast about the mess of the kitchen for the errant boxes. It was the first time he’d ever had to prepare a traditional osechi meal for New Years, since he normally just bought his at the grocery store, and he was now fully convinced that that had been the better idea. The foods were simple enough, but time consuming, and with five grown men to feed, there was a lot of it; he had poured every last bit of himself into the preparation, and he would be happy to never set foot in a kitchen again. But Kaoru had oh-so-casually mentioned his desire for homemade holiday fare, so here he was, and he would be damned if he woke up at the crack of dawn and spent his entire day getting all the food ready only to fall short when it came to presentation. Happily, he found the boxes stacked neatly in the back of a cabinet before his temper boiled over, and he set them out on the counter to await their bounty.

Although, perhaps it was for the best that he’d spent the day in the kitchen, hovering over slow-cooking food that required constant attention but no real focus. He wouldn’t have been able to concentrate properly on Kaoru with how his thoughts were wandering. At least this way, he had an excuse to neglect his master a little.

The day before, Toshiya had teased Kyo about having spent the last week sulking, so Kyo had somewhat sheepishly recounted the incident with Shinya in the kitchen. Shinya had come back the morning after the encounter and – much to Kyo’s relief – offered a weary but sincere smile when the blonde tentatively offered him breakfast. Though things remained a touch strained between them, he apparently held no grudge, and had let the issue drop without any further discussion. Kyo had explained to Toshiya that he had just been feeling a little lingering guilt over the whole thing, but it was something that would fade in time now that he had the Shinya’s forgiveness.

Except that Toshiya hadn’t seen it that way. The blue-haired man had blanched and dragged Kyo into Kaoru’s study, shutting the door behind them to scold the blonde in hushed tones. He’d urged Kyo, again and again, not to mention that kind of thing to Shinya, not to ask him questions about his past, and – most emphatically – not to let Kaoru find out that Kyo had upset him. Kyo had argued that he couldn’t avoid questions he didn’t know would lead to uncomfortable answers; that being left in the dark would inevitably lead to him stumbling into dangerous territory. From there, it had taken very little prodding to get the full story out of Toshiya. Though Kyo wound up learning just as much about Kaoru as he did about Shinya.

To understand Shinya, one first had to understand the previous master of the household, Osamu Niikura. Osamu – two years Kaoru’s senior – had taken his brother with him down the early path of deviance. Bitter, disenchanted sons of an abusive, unemployed alcoholic who blamed them for all of her strife, petty theft to keep themselves fed grew too quickly into more destructive crimes, fueled by anger and resentment for a society they felt had cheated them. By the time Kaoru was coming out of his first stint in juvenile detention, Osamu had begun doing odd jobs for the local mafia, and shortly after they rejoined – now with Die in tow – one of the jobs that had trickled down to them was a hit on a rival loan shark. They had taken it without hesitation.

Within a year of that first hit, the brothers had made names for themselves in the organization, performing assassinations with unprecedented skill and efficiency, particularly considering their unconventional choice of weapons. Kaoru gained notoriety with his use of poisons, while Osamu favored killing with his bare hands, and their talents had earned them a place in the syndicate. Kaoru had learned to drown his anger and grief in alcohol, more than happy among the rank and file of his newfound family, and for a while, things were good.

But Osamu hadn’t been content to be a lackey. With a degree of ruthless cunning no one had expected from a teenage street rat, he’d clawed his way up through the ranks, leaving a trail of bodies and spent favors behind him. By the time he was twenty, he’d taken out the former head of the family and was fully in charge of the organization. It was then that the brothers’ paths began to truly diverge. Osamu had used his newfound power to collect companions to subjugate and abuse, increasingly finding his solace in the suffering of others. Toshiya speculated that it had been Die’s influence, and later his own, that kept Kaoru from becoming the sadist that Osamu became.

This was where Shinya had come in. Fourteen at the time, he had been one of the first to arrive in Osamu’s collection, taken by force from his parents to settle a monumental debt. The boy had shared his duties and his cell – the same room Kyo occupied now, though the walls and floor had been stone then – with up to six other young men and women at a time, though few stayed long. Coltish, fragile, and unbearably innocent, from a poor but loving home, Shinya had represented everything Osamu couldn’t be, and the man had kept him around for far longer than any of the others.

Toshiya didn’t know the specifics of what had gone on behind the closed doors of the master suite – no one but Shinya did anymore – but he knew a bit from Die and his own infrequent visits to the mansion to see Kaoru. He knew that no one – not the courtesans or the mansion staff or even the security guards – had wanted to even pass by the door to the master suite some nights, cowed by the horrible sounds that spilled forth once or twice a month. He knew that whenever Shinya had been taken into public, shown off as Osamu’s current favorite plaything, the boy had been dressed and made up as a female, a skittish fawn with dead eyes moving slowly as if in great pain.

He knew that whenever Osamu’s close friend Takashi Soejima had come over to visit, everyone steered clear of the top floor of the mansion for fear of being caught and dragged into the master suite to be used in the men’s games. No one was safe on those nights. And he knew that more than once, when Osamu got into a particularly bad mood, bloody heaps of what had once been human beings had been dumped out into the hallway for housekeeping to deal with. If Kaoru embodied the Sin of Pride, Osamu was undoubtedly the Sin of Wrath.

But Osamu wasn’t just cruel with his pets; it extended out into every aspect of his life. He threw his people callously into situations he knew were dangerous or fatal, over issues that weren’t commensurate with the loss, without regard for the impact it would have on the family. He killed over the most minor slights and offenses – civilians, rivals, employees, and allies alike – and it garnered him as much contempt as it did fear. It was said that he had cared for only one other person in his life, and that person was his younger brother.

Upon taking over the family, Osamu had immediately ordered forged the necessary documents to get Kaoru into college for a biochemistry degree. Kaoru had lived in the mansion, but between his schoolwork, budding alcoholism, and keeping up his duties as a hitman for the family – at which he only became more proficient as time went on, designing newer and better poisons as he gained a deeper knowledge of chemistry and the human body – he’d paid little attention to his brother’s sadistic hobbies. It wasn’t until he’d earned his degree and started spending more time at home that he realized the depths of Osamu’s depravity, and how far it stretched into the man’s dealings with the family.

Toshiya said that at the time, Kaoru had been horrified by what his brother had become, and dismayed that it had been going on for so long without him noticing. Months went by as Kaoru begged Osamu to change his ways, tried to reason with him, argued with him, even full-on fought him a couple of times, becoming furious at what his brother was doing to the family.

The situation had only gotten tenser as time went on, reaching its peak five years ago, but the details of that night had never been shared by those involved. All anyone knew was that Osamu had been in a particularly bad mood, Takashi had been visiting, and that Kaoru had broken down the door to the master suite after seeing an unconscious Die get dragged inside. By the end of the night, Osamu was dead, Takashi had one eye, and Kaoru had a massive burn scar on his chest from where one of his own needles had scratched him. Rumors whispered up from the medical staff that if that needle had pierced even a millimeter deeper, he would have died.

Toshiya – in tears by this point – had explained that upon being freed, Osamu’s other three pets had scattered into the winds, but Shinya had stayed behind. After living as Osamu’s pet for half a decade, he simply hadn’t been able to grasp the concept of life outside the mansion. He was mute, completely incapable of independent action, and seemed convinced that he was to serve Kaoru the same way he had his previous master. For six months after Kaoru took over the family, in spite of the older man’s efforts to dissuade him, Shinya had continued to live in his cell, cleaning Kaoru’s quarters and cooking his meals with almost mechanical diligence. For the first month, Kaoru had also had to fend off – in the gentlest way he possibly could – Shinya’s attempts to serve him sexually.

Eventually, Shinya slowly began to grasp the idea that he wasn’t a pet anymore, and Kaoru managed to coax him into living in the smaller suite of rooms neighboring his own. With Toshiya and Die’s unwavering support, he got Shinya speaking again after about a year, and even convinced him to accept schooling from a handful of tutors. It was at this point that Kaoru realized the startling depths of the boy’s knowledge of the family’s inner workings; after five years at Osamu’s side, Shinya knew more about the organization and how to run it than Kaoru did. So Kaoru had offered him a choice; either he could venture forth on his own, and the family would give him all of the financial support he needed, such that he would never need to work a day in his life… or he could stay on as Kaoru’s advisor.

Kyo had a lot of conflicting thoughts on the story, which was why a day spent over tedious food preparation had come in quite handy. On the one hand, he was surprised to learn that Kaoru had never really wanted to run the family in the first place, given how naturally he seemed to take to his role. On the other, his master’s apparent alcoholism suddenly made a lot more sense, as did his devotion to Toshiya, Die, and Shinya. It also explained why the others treated Shinya the way they did; the way they so rarely made eye contact with him or really touched him, how they never really argued with him or corrected him, the great lengths they went to just to get him to smile. Just under the forced veil of normalcy, they handled Shinya like he was a broken porcelain doll who had been painstakingly pieced back together, but no one was sure if the glue was dried yet.

Oddly enough, Shinya himself still baffled Kyo. He remembered one of the first things he’d ever heard the man say, the first clue he’d gotten to his past. Die had been laughing, explaining that everyone wanted to be Kaoru’s companion because he spoiled them. Shinya had muttered that it was unlike the previous master of the family, and Toshiya and Die had gone dead silent, guilt and pity weighing heavily in the air. Kyo hadn’t really noticed it at the time – being rather absorbed with his own issues – but he seemed to remember Shinya being almost… irritated for a split second afterwards. It, like many of the half-formed emotions Kyo had seen surface on the man’s lovely face, was quickly tamped down and replaced by a resigned, almost despondent sort of stare.

_‘Now that I think of it…’_

_‘That night I called him out in the kitchen, he didn’t seem traumatized, really.’_

_‘He looked more **pissed** than anything.’_

_‘But… how can that be, if he’s as frail as Toshiya says?’_

_‘It just doesn’t fit…’_

Footsteps padding softly on the tile pulled him out of his thoughts and he rolled his eyes a bit at his pots and pans. “It’s still not ready, Die. If you’re hungry, I can make you a sandwich or something?”

There was a soft chuckle in response. “Die is rather absorbed in his new video game, I doubt he’d eat it.”

Kyo twisted his head over one shoulder, blinking.

_‘Speak of the devil… or think of him, anyways.’_

“Oh, sorry Shinya… did you need something?”

The auburn-haired man peered over the array of dishes that Kyo was standing watch over, offering a somewhat wry smile. “I thought I’d come see if you needed any help, but it looks like I might be too late…?”

Kyo nodded, eyeing Shinya closely. “Aa, everything just needs to finish cooking. It should be ready to dish up in about half an hour or so, if you want to help with that.”

Shinya bobbed his head and leaned against a counter, seeming reluctant to go back into the living room. Kyo shifted his feet, forming a different theory about the man in the back of his mind. It seemed to fit his own observations, but contradicted Toshiya’s badly.

_'Doesn't Toshiya know him better than I do, though?'_

_'Unless he hasn't looked closely enough to see a change...'_

“Something the matter?” he asked carefully.

There was a pause for consideration, then Shinya shrugged. “Toshiya’s being weird today. He’s a dear friend, but sometimes his fussing can just be… too much. I don’t know what got him in such a mood.”

_‘Fussing, huh?’_

_‘Maybe I’m right…’_

_‘I wonder…’_

“It might be my fault. I, um… I told him about the other night. You know… when you and I were cleaning up after Christmas.”

Shinya barely held back a grimace. “Oh?”

“Mmhmm. He got kind of upset about the whole thing and told me to be more careful… told me all about… well, you know. What you used to be.”

And there it was again, that brief flicker of irritation, swallowed quickly by bitter acquiescence. Sober, Shinya had much better control over himself than he had the last time Kyo had brought the subject up, but Kyo had seen what he needed to see.

_‘I **am** right, then…’_

_‘Oh Shinya… what you’ve resigned yourself to…’_

_‘Do you really think that I would…?’_

_‘No. After everything he’s done for me…’_

_‘I can’t let him think that way.’_

“I don’t feel sorry for you,” Kyo found himself saying.

Shinya’s head came up a bit, blinking. “…Excuse me?”

Kyo turned around to face the man fully. “I said, I don’t feel sorry for you.”

There was a flash of confusion, then a forced, unsure smile. “Well… why would you? I mean… I was what you are now, so why-”

_‘I’m sorry, Shinya… please don’t hate me for this.’_

Kyo held up a hand. “Not even close. Kaoru is, if nothing else, a very fair master; I’ve earned every punishment I’ve gotten. Your scars are all on your back; you didn’t get them fighting against your master, you were _abused_. But I don’t feel sorry for you.”

There, a brief scowl. “Well, I-”

Kyo took a step forward, moving into Shinya’s space and meeting his eyes aggressively. “Don’t you get it? Toshiya told me everything he knew, and I’ve figured out more of it besides just from watching you. Osamu _humiliated_ you.” Another step. “ _Broke_ you.” And another. “ _Ruined_ you as a child. But I don’t feel sorry for you.”

Shinya started to bristle defensively, his voice rising. “Kyo, I don’t want to talk about it, just-”

“He was your first, wasn’t he? First and last, I bet.”

Shinya turned to leave, but Kyo caught his arm before he could take so much as a single step, holding him in place. The older man’s eyes flashed dangerously, but he was fighting to keep himself contained.

“Let go.”

“I was right before, too, wasn’t I? Kaoru looks like His brother… I bet you see Osamu every time you look at Him.”

“I said let go.”

_‘Forgive me, Shinya.’_

“Toshiya said I need to be gentle with you. To never ask you questions about your past, to never bring it up at all because you're just too damn fragile to handle it. But I have to tell you the truth, princess-”

Shinya snarled, “Excuse me?!”

“-I _don’t_ feel sorry for you!”

A lot of things happened at once. Kaoru, Die, and Toshiya appeared in the doorway, drawn by the sounds of a tense conversation. Toshiya gasped at the aggressive stance Kyo had taken, pulling on Shinya’s arm. Die swore under his breath and started towards them to separate them, and Kaoru got halfway through demanding an explanation. Kyo barely had time to register his master’s presence before he was slammed back against the counter, knocking more than a few plates and bowls off to shatter across the floor. He was bent backwards with Shinya looming over him, absolutely livid, Kyo’s collar fisted in one hand, the other holding what felt like an impossibly sharp knife tight against the blonde’s throat. Everyone else went silent and still in shock.

_‘Ohshitohshitoh **shit**!’_

_‘No one told me he carries knives!’_

_‘At least none of the food was knocked ov-’_

_‘THAT’S NOT REALLY A PRIORITY RIGHT NOW!’_

_‘Maybe this wasn’t the right way to open him up!’_

“WHY NOT?!” Shinya demanded, seething. “WHY NOT, IF HE TOLD YOU EVERYTHING?! Everybody else does! They saw me, in goddamn women’s clothes, limping around the mansion after being fucked by that madman! They heard me screaming at night, they’ve seen my scars! They whisper about me constantly, treat me like I’m made of glass, like damaged fucking goods! Why don’t you pity me, when you know that _your_ master is fair and _mine_ was a psychopath?! Why don’t you pity _poor, broken Shinya_ like everyone else?!”

Kyo held Shinya’s gaze as he forced down his panic, speaking back just as harshly. “I don’t feel sorry for you because none of that matters. Whatever happened before, whatever you used to be, that’s not your life anymore.”

Shinya stared at him, some of his anger fading slightly to confusion at his own words from before being spoken back to him. “…W-… what?”

“Maybe if I’d known you then, I would have pitied you, but that’s not who you are anymore. You’re a grown-ass man, Shinya! You’re strong enough to carry Die up two flights of stairs when he’s too drunk to walk, clever enough to steal the remote to my collar from Kaoru when He’s already pissed, and brave enough to stand up to Takashi Soejima knowing he might recognize you from back then.”

“…”

The pressure on the knife let up, and Shinya backed off just a bit, allowing Kyo to straighten partway. He looked taken aback, stunned by the force in the blonde’s voice.

“You know why he doesn’t? Because you’re not that person anymore. You’re not weak. You’re not broken. I don’t pity you because there’s nothing about you to pity. You’re the strongest man I’ve ever known, to come through what you did, and no matter how fragile anyone else thinks you are, no matter how easy they think you are to break, nothing will ever make me think any less of you. You don’t have to hide from me.”

For a long time, Kyo and Shinya just stared at one another. The air between them was crackling with electric tension, thick and suffocating under the weight of so many heavy words. Kaoru, Die, and Toshiya stood in the doorway, too stunned to move, and remained in their shocked silence as Shinya’s knife clattered to the floor. He looped his arms loosely around Kyo’s neck and butted his forehead gently against the younger blonde’s with a smile that finally, _finally_ reached his eyes. It lacked the crushing ferocity of Toshiya’s hug the day Kyo discovered his infatuation with Die, but held the same emotional weight, and the blonde understood the sentiment behind the unimposing gesture.

“Kyo, I-… you-…” Shinya breathed. “I don’t know what to-… thank you. Just… thank you. You have no idea what that means…”

_‘…It worked?’_

_‘It worked!’_

_‘Oh gods, I can’t believe it worked…’_

_‘Hotei, Juroujin, Fukurokuju, Bishamon, Benten, Daikoku, Ebisu, whoever let this not completely blow up in my face, **thank you.** ’_

Kyo deflated with relief, hooking his hands over Shinya's upper arms. “Any time, Shinya. Sorry I had to be a dick about it.”

Shinya gave a soft, shaky laugh. “I’m not. I… I didn’t even think I could get angry like that… it felt really good.”

Kyo cracked a wry smile. “Like I said, you’re not broken. Next time, I’ll try to keep in mind that you carry throwing knives around.”

Shinya looked a little worried, drawing back to look at the blonde’s neck. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

Kyo grinned a bit recklessly. “No, but I’m not convinced my legs are working properly. You’re scary when you’re pissed.”

_“No shit.”_

Die’s emphatic whisper reminded the two men of their audience, and they pulled apart to face the three older men. Kaoru was watching the whole scene with an expression caught somewhere between over-protectiveness and confusion. Toshiya looked to be on the verge of tears, hands clasped anxiously in front of his chest, and Shinya sighed with fond exasperation. He crossed the kitchen and opened his arms, letting the blue-haired man pull him into a desperate hug, while Die ruffled his hair with a repentant grin. Muffled apologies could be heard from the crook of Shinya’s shoulder, but he just chuckled softly and shook his head. Kaoru turned a questioning frown on Kyo, and his pet ducked his head with a pleading, apologetic glance.

_‘Don’t be mad?’_

_‘I just… after everything he’s done for me…’_

_‘I couldn’t let him think I pitied him…’_

But Kaoru’s face softened into a smile that was almost… appreciative, somehow, and Kyo felt a rush of accomplishment.

From there, New Year’s Eve passed with ubiquitous high spirits. As night fell, everyone bundled up and moved the celebration out to the patio overlooking the gardens, music blasting out of a boom box as they indulged in games to pass the time. There were a few rather boisterous rounds of fukuwarai, Toshiya and Die tried to play table tennis on the patio table, and – after learning that Kyo had never played the game – Kaoru acted as dealer for everyone to play oichokabu. The osechi meal maybe wasn’t the prettiest, but everything came out tasting great, and all the food disappeared quickly, supplemented by a box of mochi treats.

When it started getting late, the music was shut off and everyone went quiet. At midnight, a temple in the hills far beyond the edge of the property’s surrounding walls rang its bells, the echoing tolls sending the dogs patrolling the yards into a cacophony of answering howls. Toshiya threw his head back into the First Laugh of the New Year. Die very formally offered Kaoru a postcard for the First Letter. Shinya set out the dishes for the First Tea Ceremony. Kyo’s First Kiss of the year was from Kaoru, leaving him breathless not only because of its intensity, but because it was the first time his master had ever kissed him on the mouth. And in the early hours, as they sat up to watch the First Sunrise, Shinya leaned over to whisper in Kyo’s ear so no one else could hear.

“ _I stayed because I love them. They are the only family I have, my **brothers** , and I know that they need me just as much as I need them. Kaoru destroys every life he touches, but if you can make it past the initial shock… if you can look past the darkness, he replaces it with something so much better… something **wonderful**.”_

 

 


	29. Chapter 29

Black and blue dreadlock extensions bobbed as Toshiya bounced impatiently on the balls of his feet, waiting for access to the master bedroom. Fridays had become something of a treat for him in the past couple weeks; Kaoru had begun allowing Kyo to accompany them out to the club, and had granted Toshiya permission to dress the blonde for the occasions. He had always felt that fashion design was one of his few skill sets – if not the only one – that had nothing to do with vice or sin. It was a legitimate talent, born of his heart and his mind, rather than sordid expertise picked up from too many years on the street like everything else he did, and he savored every opportunity to exercise it.

And he found that Kyo was a particularly satisfying model. The younger man was generally very pliant to his whims, and could be made to look good in just about anything Toshiya put on him. The first time they’d taken him out, he’d dressed the younger man in black slacks and a white dress shirt with a long, straight-cut black jacket over it. With his hair combed tidily, soft and straight around his face, wearing his thick-rimmed reading glasses, Kyo had appeared every inch a sweet, innocent little nerd. Last week, it had been a sleeveless orange tee-shirt with black writing scrawled across the front, baggy black pants, and a black and red tie. A black fedora had finished off a cool, confident look that spoke of nothing so much as cocksure masculinity. Toshiya was quite excited for the outfit he’d put together for this evening; it was something again entirely new.

Except that he’d been stuck waiting in the hall of the master suite for almost half an hour now.

_‘What the hell is taking so long?’_

A more reasonable part of him supposed that showing up an hour early did run a significant risk of having to wait for an hour. He ignored that part. The rest of him was impatient and excited for a night of fun after a long, stressful work week, and that was the part driving him at the moment. Hearing a soft murmur of voices from the other side of the bedroom door, he leaned over and pressed his ear to the wood, unabashedly curious. He’d originally thought that Kyo simply opted not to speak in Kaoru’s presence whenever he could help it, possibly as a result of the time he’d spent with the training collar on. As time went on, he came to understand that Kaoru and Kyo actually spoke quite frequently when they were alone; the blonde just tended to stay quiet in group settings, vastly preferring one-on-one conversations.

“-ave to go like this?” That was Kyo’s voice, sounding put out.

Kaoru’s response was stern but vaguely amused. “So you don’t forget who you belong to while we’re out and about.”

“Isn’t the collar enough? And you chained me to the table last time; I don’t think I’m going to forget my place any time soon.”

There was Kaoru’s lazy chuckle. “I didn’t like how that waitress was looking at you. Think of it as a chastity belt.”

_‘Ah, he’s tying the little bugger up for the evening.’_

Toshiya knew the shibari torso harness design well enough; Kaoru had used it on the blonde the night of the Christmas party, and both nights that they had taken him to the club so far. It wasn’t so elaborate as Kaoru’s usual projects, but the bottom section of it formed a possessive casing around the base of Kyo’s cock and ran a double band of soft rope between his ass cheeks. Finished off with a complicated knot at the small of the back that only Kaoru – or someone with an equivalent knowledge of rope play – could undo, it served as an effective barrier around the man’s treasured property. Kyo’s range of motion would not be impaired, but his mind would never be able to drift far from the awareness of his binding, and he certainly wouldn’t be sleeping with anyone with it on.

“…”

“Oh, don’t make that face. You go wearing this or you don’t go at all, that was the deal.” Kaoru’s voice dropped to a coy purr, lowering slightly in volume. “Besides, you seemed to like how I tied you up last night just fine.”

“That was… it’s not the same…” Toshiya could hear the blush staining the blonde’s cheeks in his voice. “It’s different, in that room…”

“Is that so? Why then, I wonder, is it having the same effect?”

“Nh!”

Toshiya felt a voyeuristic little shiver at Kyo’s breathy grunt, a soft whimper underscoring the sound.

“Kyo… lay down.”

“M-…master?”

“On your back, facing me. I want you to touch yourself for me.”

_‘…What?’_

_‘Oh, no **way!** ’_

There was a brief silence, during which Toshiya bit his lip with ill-contained anticipation, then the soft creak of bedsprings as a body slowly crawled across a mattress.

_‘Ho-ly shit… I need to show up early more often…’_

“What do you want me to do?”

“Whatever gets you off, pet. I want you to masturbate for me.”

“But Master… the rope…”

“You’ll just have to work around it.”

Toshiya was absolutely enthralled. It wasn’t so much that he was interested in either man sexually; on the rare occasions that he could be honest with himself, he had little to no real interest in sex anymore. But the way that Kaoru and Kyo interacted never failed to fascinate him. Kaoru maintained a delicate balance of affection and selfish dominance over his pet; he took care of Kyo, and saw to it that the blonde was kept reasonably happy, but he never let the younger man forget exactly what he was to him. Kyo, on the other hand, seemed to swing precariously on the narrow line between harrowed uncertainty and the pressing need to please his master; always unsure of his place, of his exact boundaries, but fairly secure in his knowledge of himself and what people tended to find attractive about him.

Both men were ever-shifting, chaotic beings of duality and paradox, but somehow all of their inherent contradictions seemed to mesh into one another flawlessly. Kyo appeared to feed upon Kaoru’s every reaction to him, and Toshiya had never seen anyone catch and keep Kaoru’s attention so easily as Kyo could, simply by walking into the room. And yet, for all of that, it was painfully obvious by their exchanges that there was no love between them; Kyo took care of Kaoru because it was his only real purpose, and Kaoru took care of Kyo because it gave him peace at the end of the day.

And so, it was with a purely inquisitive motivation that Toshiya stood pressed against Kaoru’s bedroom door, listening to Kyo masturbate for his master’s viewing pleasure. He listened to the muted sounds of flesh sliding over flesh, almost inaudible under the panting and faint groaning that the blonde tried so hard to suppress, and his experienced imagination drew up the scene for him. Kaoru was probably sitting in that cushy chair of his, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, chin in one hand as he watched his pet with that ineffable air of superiority that he always seemed to possess. Kyo would be on the bed, legs spread wide to afford his master a proper view, nude but for the single black rope so artfully wound about his torso and hips, fondling himself and blushing madly for his own wanton display. Trying not to enjoy himself and failing miserably.

As the sounds ramped up in intensity, Toshiya wondered absently – not for the first time – if Kyo was the best actor he’d ever known, or the worst. He strongly suspected it was the latter, and that what little they saw in the younger man’s face and heard in his voice was legitimate. Certainly he had little reason to pretend to feel the way he appeared to most of the time – timidity, irritation, stubbornness, curiosity; none of them benefited him in the regard of Kaoru or his “brothers.” The apparent honesty and intensity of the blonde’s moods was an appealing factor for Kaoru, who detested the pretenses and false affections of his usual courtesan companions.

Toshiya followed the rhythm of the noises – the harsh panting, the protesting bedsprings, the strangled moans – and knew instinctively that Kyo was on the verge of release. Just a couple more strokes an-

“ **Stop**.”

Kaoru’s voice was so stern, so sudden, that Toshiya jumped a little. Kyo answered with a keening whine, tinged with neediness now that he had been brought so close.

“M-Master?!”

“Hands off.”

“Kaoru, please, I-”

“ **Now** ,” Kaoru growled possessively. “…There’s a good boy. Hmm… you’re really quite beautiful like this, you know?”

“Master, please, it hurts, I can’t-… I need-… nnnh!”

“Oh? And is that what’s important? Your needs? Or mine?”

Kyo’s answer was immediate, breathless and shaking in desperation. “Yours, Master, always yours, only yours… please… please, Master, tell me what you need?”

“Come here, pet.” A clumsy squeak of bedsprings, then soft footfalls. “On your knees.” A muffled thud. “You know what to do.” A soft clatter of a belt buckle, then a sharp, rasping zipper. “…Mmmnnnh… good boy…”

Listening to Kyo give Kaoru head was absolutely surreal for Toshiya. He had known intellectually, of course, that a major part of the blonde’s function was to pleasure Kaoru sexually. But somehow their mostly-chaste behavior in public, combined with Kyo’s generally reticent sort of wariness, had put something of a filter over the truth of their relationship. Toshiya’s more cynical side had assumed that Kaoru was simply bending the blonde over and using him for one-sided pleasure, while his romanticist side imagined passionate romps made all the more striking by Kaoru’s sinful nature contrasting with Kyo’s apparent innocence. The reality of it – Kaoru’s methods of control, the way that pleasure was exchanged and bargained for to encourage more eager obedience – was a startling deviation from either scenario.

He listened as Kaoru hit his peak with a groan and a muted expletive. There was a moment of silence, then the faint creak of a chair, before Toshiya heard Kyo gasp and bite back a moan. Some frantic panting, a breathy plea, and a handful of harsh grunts later, the blonde was crying out his release as well, much louder than his master had been. The next words were whispered so softly, Toshiya wasn’t even sure he heard them properly.

“Th-… thank you, Kaoru…”

That lazy chuckle rumbled through the air again, followed by a sigh and the sound of a hand lightly patting bare skin. “Come on, little one, let’s get you cleaned up. Toshiya will be here any-”

Toshiya straightened and knocked loudly on the door. He knew full well that now that it had been brought up, they would be listening for his footsteps on the hall, and he would be caught when he showed up unheralded. Kaoru hated it when he eavesdropped. This way, they would assume he’d just arrived on the tail end of their activities, unheard while they had been coming down from their respective orgasms.

“Hello, anybody home? Open up, lovelies, it’s time to get dressed!”

~*~

Appearances were important. Toshiya knew that he had a role to play, even in casual outings like this, as the director of Kaoru’s courtesans, whores, strippers, drug dealers and the facilities that housed them; as the Queen Bitch, as Die liked to call him. It was an unspoken rule that he should never be grubby, never be plain when he was out on the town. Even if Kaoru would never chastise him for it, he knew that it would be a severe lapse in the façade that someone in his position was supposed to put forward. He would never complain – the others were held to similar scrutiny, even Kaoru himself – but he had to always be mindful of how he conducted himself, and how his every action might be construed by prying eyes.

_‘Have to play all these damn games just to get a minute alone…’_

He had to lean over the table, nearly shouting at his boss to be heard over the din of the club’s dance music. “Ne, Kaoru… can Kyo come dance with me?”

Kaoru paused halfway through sipping his rum and coke, and glanced down at his pet thoughtfully. Kyo had caught the question, and now looked up at him hopefully. He frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t want him getting fondled by a bunch of grubby thugs.”

“Oh, c’mon, Kao. Why bother bringing him out here if you’re not going to let him have a little fun?” Toshiya whined.

Kyo bit his lip and slid up Kaoru’s side, one hand resting flat against his master’s chest to whisper coyly into his ear, then sat back to stare up at him expectantly. Toshiya had no way of knowing what was said, but he could tell it had a significant effect on Kaoru. The older man raised an eyebrow at the blonde, eyes going black with intrigue and… excitement, perhaps? Whatever Kyo had said, it struck a chord.

Eventually, Kaoru looked back to Toshiya. “You stay where I can see you both. And keep an eye on him.”

Meaning, of course, that he was to keep wandering hands off of the man’s property _and_ make sure that Kyo didn’t run off. It would be the first time Kyo was allowed to wander from Kaoru’s side outside of the mansion grounds.

“You know I will,” Toshiya promised.

“And you…” Kaoru caught Kyo’s chin and stared him down intently. “If I catch anyone other than Toshiya touching you, I’ll have to spend the rest of my evening breaking every bone in their hands one by one. That way, I’ll be calmed down enough that I can take the time to punish _you_ properly.”

The words had their intended effect: Kyo shuddered a bit, and nodded earnestly. Kaoru held his gaze for a moment longer before moving aside to let his pet up out of the booth. Toshiya beamed and caught the younger man’s hand, weaving skillfully through the crowd to drag him out onto the dance floor. When he found a spot he liked, he pulled the blonde against himself with a wicked grin, his entire body moving with instinctive sensuality to the beat of the music pounding around them. Apparently this was Kyo’s comfort zone as well; he responded immediately in kind, letting his hands rest intimately on Toshiya’s shoulder and hip as they moved together. The blue-haired man caught more than a few interested glances shot their way, and took a moment to congratulate himself once again on his work prepping Kyo for the evening.

It had taken everything he had, but Toshiya had eventually managed to make Kyo look passably androgynous, though not entirely feminine. The blonde’s hair was done up in soft spikes, accented with black feathers and held out of his face with a broad black band. He wore subtle eyeshadow, stark black eyeliner making his eyes appear more exotic and narrow than they were, and his already pale complexion from months away from the sun was fully washed out with geisha white, contrast added by a delicate little design drawn between his brows and the dark purple lining his full lips. A long, black garment somewhere between a robe and a dress hugged his frame elegantly, a delicate capelette disguising his masculine shoulders while a cincher emphasized his narrow waist. A large, pink dragon was embroidered on the skirt, and the whole thing was embellished with designs made of glo-sticks.

“What did you say to Kaoru to change his mind?” Toshiya wondered against the younger man’s ear.

Kyo’s mouth twitched up in a faint smile, leaning up to respond, “I promised to give Him a good show… and told Him that when I’m dancing, I can’t think of anything other than His rope between my legs.”

Toshiya was laughing before the blonde even finished.

_‘Yeah, I can see how that shit would motivate Kao…’_

Kyo smirked and spun, pressing his back against Toshiya’s chest and looping his arms around the taller man’s neck as his hips swung. He flashed his master a sultry wink across the room to assure that he meant to keep his promise before tipping his head back to continue talking. “What did you want me for, Totchi? You’re not exactly short on willing dance partners.”

Toshiya slid his hands down to grasp the blonde’s waist, grinding against him in a rhythmic, almost vulgar pantomime that in no way matched the strain in his voice. “I need your help with Die, I… I’m starting to lose it, I think. I just… I want him so much it hurts! I’ve tried so hard to make myself give up on him, to just be happy loving him as a brother, and I just… I can’t do it anymore.”

“What do you want me to do?”

A quieter corner of Toshiya’s mind snatched up those words, turning them over and over like a curious artifact. It was the second time that day he’d heard Kyo utter that exact same question, but it seemed to carry a completely different weight this time around. When spoken to Kaoru, it was a baring of the neck; a submissive gesture displaying willingness to serve and to please in recognition of his master’s dominance. With Toshiya, it became an open hand; an offer of help to a friend in need, conveying an odd sort of strength and affection.

The rest of Toshiya’s mind was busy with other problems. He tipped his head, running his tongue suggestively through the air a scant millimeter away from the blonde’s cheek, then whispering, “I need you to use your freaky mind-reading powers on him and find out if he likes me.”

The comment startled a laugh out of Kyo, and Toshiya was a little proud of himself. Though the blonde’s smile had become a slightly more common occurrence since the holidays, it was always just a little strained, and he _never_ laughed. The blue-haired man found he liked the sound of it.

Kyo turned again, threading one hand through Toshiya’s dread extensions and tugging him down by them as his body twisted with the music. “‘Mind-reading powers’?”

“Yes! Freaky ones, use them!”

“Totchi… I can’t read minds.”

Toshiya looked stricken. “Of course you can. How else could you keep figuring out everybody’s secrets?”

“I just have a lot of free time to think about the things you guys do and say, that’s all. Have you tried just talking to him? Die doesn’t like games like these, you know, he appreciates honesty.”

“But what if he’s not interested? What if it just freaks him out?!”

Kyo slipped a shrug into his dancing. “Even if he’s not into you that way, I’m sure he cares about you enough not to let it ruin your friendship. I had it bad for Kisaki for a while, and he knew it, but neither of us let it sour the relationship we did have, and it faded away in time. I’m sure if worst came to worst, and your feelings weren’t returned, Die would do everything he could to keep from hurting you.”

_‘…Oh hell… he was in love with that stupid wanker once?’_

_‘Poor little kitten…’_

_‘Kao’s much better for him, I think.’_

His romanticist side again, always hoping for the improbable love story to come out of the darkness they lived in. It had been unusually noisy lately, which was perhaps how they came to be having this conversation.

Toshiya gave a slightly strained laugh, running his hands down Kyo’s sides and arching against him. “Well yeah, but what am I supposed to say? ‘Hey, Die! I just noticed - I’m sexy, you’re sexy… you wanna fuck around?’”

Kyo rolled his eyes a bit. “Oh please. You know how to get people into your bed. Hell, you’re not even trying right now and half the people in this room want you.”

Toshiya deflated a little. “That’s… that’s just it though. I don’t really want to sleep with Die. I mean… he’s gorgeous, and I… I’m sure I would enjoy it, but when I imagine us together… that’s not what I want with him.”

“What do you want, then?”

“I don’t know! I… what we have now, I guess, only… more? I don’t know. I just… every time he’s in the room, I just wish he was… holding me. Kissing me, even. I just want to be close to him all the time. But I don’t know how to ask him for any of that; I’ve never… dated anyone before.”

Kyo’s eyebrows rose. “…Seriously? Never?”

Toshiya shook his head. “I was kind of a loser growing up. All my friends were girls, but I was just a playmate to them, and by the time I was old enough to be interested in sex at all, I was selling it. I’ve only ever slept with people for money.”

“Gods, I thought Shinya was the only virgin in the family…”

Toshiya gave him a bizarre sort of look. “‘Virgin’? Are you kidding? Between him and me, we’ve probably had more sex than everyone else in this room combined.”

Kyo shook his head, holding up three fingers as he went into an enviable display of popping and locking. “There are three ways two people can be intimate, and they’re all very different experiences. Being fucked is one-sided, and purely physical. Having sex is two-sided, but also purely physical. Making love is two-sided, and emotional and physical. You’re a virgin until you’ve had sex and made love, at least once. Shinya’s only ever been fucked, so he’s oh-for-two, and you’ve only been fucked and had sex, so you’re one-for-two.”

Toshiya blinked, absolutely dumbfounded, forgetting for a split second that he was supposed to be dancing.

“Physically, you’re dirtier than a magazine in a black vinyl bag, but emotionally you’re pure as fresh-fallen snow,” Kyo asserted, then quirked a half grin at the inadvertent setup for pun. “So you still count as a virgin in that regard until Die… eh… ‘plows’ you. Or, you know, someone else you love.”

Toshiya thought on that as he resumed his motions, letting his body fall back into the familiar rhythm of seduction. It made a weird sort of sense, and he found he really liked the idea that some part of himself could be considered “pure”… that he had something untouched he could actually give to Die, if offered the chance. He grinned, suddenly feeling much better. “You know, Shinya said he’s been spending a lot of his lunches hanging out with you… is this the kind of thing you guys talk about?”

If so, he could see the appeal.

“Sometimes, but not always. We play video games some days, or watch television shows. Tuesday he showed me this weird way of folding tee-shirts, and yesterday I taught him how to make cherries jubilee. We almost set the kitchen on fire.”

“Was that that thing you made for Kao’s birthday dessert?”

“Mmhmm. It’s my favorite.”

“Oh man, that shit was so good! Maybe Shin can make some for your birthday too, since you taught him? He loves cooking for people, I think.”

Kyo looked a little uncomfortable. “…Aa, he does…”

Toshiya was excited by the idea of doing something for his littlest brother. “I’ll tell him! When’s your birthday? I bet Kao will give you the day off, we can have a party!”

“…” Kyo gave a somewhat forced smile. “It’s February 16th.”

Toshiya felt a faint little stab of guilt pang in his stomach. “The day before Kaoru’s? But his was… yesterday… your birthday was on Wednesday?”

“Yeah. I turned twenty-four.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?!”

Kyo shrugged. “It… didn’t seem important.”

“Oh, little brother! You sh- HGN!”

Toshiya choked on whatever he had been planning to say as something far sharper than guilt shredded through his abdomen, starting at his back and pressing through to his front. Pain spread through him like fire, burning its way out from his core along every nerve in his body until his every muscle quivered under the strain of it. It hurt so damn bad, hit him so abruptly, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but stand there frozen in absolute shock.

“Toshiya?” Kyo’s voice was a low buzz nearby, barely registering over the static suddenly fizzing in his head. “Totchi, what’s wrong?”

He managed to take a staggering step away from the younger man and looked down, staring blankly at the four centimeters of steel protruding from just under his ribs, spearing him from back to front. Someone had… stabbed him? Run him straight through in the middle of a crowded dance floor? It was inconceivable, but the proof was there, holding him skewered. Kyo had been shielded from the tip of the blade by the thick fabric of his waist cincher, and some disjointed corner of Toshiya’s mind that wasn’t currently screaming in stunned agony was glad for that. Kaoru would have been pissed if he’d let the man’s precious pet be damaged. People around them continued dancing, apparently completely unaware of the assault.

“Oh gods!” Kyo breathed, a little hysterically, staring at the rapidly-spreading patch of dark wetness on Toshiya’s shirt. “Toshiya?! What-”

There was a sudden jerk as the blade sucked back out of the blue-haired man, and it seemed to pull all of his energy out with it. Toshiya gasped thickly, tasting copper on the back of his tongue, but it felt like he was inhaling razor blades. The fire flared wildly and even as his vision went white around the edges, he realized that he was falling, his legs suddenly useless beneath him. A few people started to notice him then, moving awkwardly away from his prone form, still not really comprehending. Oddly enough, he didn’t even feel it when he hit the ground. Maybe it was just because he already hurt so badly, his brain was refusing to acknowledge any other pains.

His fingers curled into straining claws, hovering uselessly over the gaping wound in his stomach, and he fought to breathe through blood pooling in his throat, in his mouth, in his lungs. He caught sight of a man he didn’t recognize staring down at him, tucking a blood-stained knife discretely back into one sleeve, before another gasp shredded through his chest and blinded him with pain. It felt like his entire chest was caving in on itself; he was trying desperately to breathe as his body screamed for oxygen, but it hurt so damn bad and he was choking on thick, sanguineous copper. He swam, lost, through the agony, just barely hearing a distant Kyo-buzz under the frantic beating of his own heart.

“Toshiya?! TOSHIYA?! Oh gods, Totchi, hang on, just… just hang on! Don’t die! HELP! WE NEED HELP!”

He was falling, he realized. The further down he got, the darker everything started to be, and a sudden chill washed over him. The world was staring to fade; the music… Kyo’s voice… the hands grasping at his body… the smell of smoke and sweat… the taste of blood… the pain… until nothing was left but dull static and blackness. Then the static cut out as well, and there was nothing.

 

 


	30. Chapter 30

**“I endured all I could; so much it almost killed me.”**

Kyo rested his cheek against the window, letting the indistinct shadows of raindrops down the glass paint tears that he could no longer shed onto his skin. He’d already cried for so long. All night, the night Toshiya was stabbed; confused and terrified and overwhelmed. And the entire day afterwards; stricken by the sudden loss of the bright eyes, wide smiles, and weird, wheezing laughs he had come to take for granted from his big brother. On and off sporadically over the course of the next two days; sorrow crashing over him unexpectedly, unavoidably, until finally the tears ran dry. He simply had no more left to give.

_‘Come back… please…’_

_‘Totchi, why can’t you come back?’_

**“I even held out my hands, but...”**

In the days following the incident, Kyo had faltered in his duties, trying his best to keep up with his master’s flagging mood and failing miserably under the weight of his horror. Kaoru had to remind himself, through the haze of his own fury and sadness, that his pet was still a very new denizen of this dark underworld of theirs. Witnessing such violence could be quite traumatizing to those unused to bloodshed, particularly when it involved someone so deeply loved as Toshiya. For the first couple of nights, the blonde hadn’t slept at all, so the doctor Kaoru kept on site had given him some sleeping pills. He was constantly sick to his stomach as well; he had to be just about force-fed his meals.

_‘Can’t you see how much we need you?’_

**“I ended up here, now.”**

Kaoru had also vastly slackened Kyo’s leash, seeing that the hours spent confined in solitude only exacerbated the younger man’s grief. He was now allowed to wander the mansion freely – though he was assigned an armed escort at all times, and he wasn’t allowed outside – so long as he returned to the master suite by the time Kaoru was done with his work for the day. But he couldn’t enjoy this new freedom, not with the circumstances under which it had been granted. He’d spent every moment of it in this room, staring mournfully out the window overlooking a koi pond, trying to comprehend the most recent turn his life had taken, catching him unawares and ripping him apart inside.

_‘I don’t understand…’_

**“We’re in hell, under control of Him.”**

Off to one side, a phone jingled merrily, and he shot it a vicious glare. He hated that damnable thing, with its constant, sickening chimes, chirps, beeps, and songs. He hated the clattering jumble of charms hanging off of it, he hated the cartoony little monsters that decorated its protective sleeve, and he hated the single crack running through the center of its screen. He hated it because it was Toshiya’s, and because it was constantly calling for attention that couldn’t be given.

_‘Shut up, SHUT UP!’_

_‘Don’t you know he’s not going to answer?!’_

_‘He can’t… he…’_

His voice wavered as he sang.

**“The end has been announced…”**

Kyo had seen Toshiya’s bedroom once before, back in December when the blue-haired man had been tutoring him. Then, the scarlet motif of the room had been a fascinating window into Toshiya’s psyche; the need for true passion an unexpected characteristic in one who peddled chemical highs and the very basest pleasures. Now, though he couldn’t bring himself to stay away from it, needing even this miserable imitation of closeness with his friend, it was just a sickening reminder of that night. The blood that had spread out across the floor, pooling up sticky and hot with life around his fingers as he tried to cover the wound, soaking into his gloves and staining him forever. So much blood… Too much blood.

_‘Why would anyone want to hurt you?’_

**“By a light that has disappeared…”**

He was haunted by the memory of it. Seeing Toshiya lying there, so pale, so still, so peaceful… like a beautiful doll, cruelly discarded. It felt like it couldn’t be real, like it was just a terrible dream too vivid to wake up from. That couldn’t be Toshiya lying there! Toshiya was always so very alive, constantly moving, constantly smiling, constantly flirting with playful touches and coy smiles that never quite reached his eyes until he was talking to Die. Toshiya – who read crappy romance novels and yearned for every word of them, never allowing himself to give up hope for something beautiful he could call his own after a life of filth – could never lie so still. Toshiya – who savored every moment of his sordid past, regretting nothing because his memories made him who he was, and the crooked path he had taken had brought him into the family he loved so dearly – could never be so silent.

_‘Why can’t you just come back to us…?’_

**“By a stage that is dark.”**

Kaoru had been drinking more heavily than ever before, and was often in such a foul mood that nothing Kyo did could salvage it. He feared Kaoru in those moments, feared that the strain would break through the man’s poise and he would lash out at the nearest available target. More than once, he had come very close – a tattooed hand rising in impending violence against his pet – and Kyo had had no option but to squeeze his eyes shut and brace himself for impact. He couldn’t fight Kaoru, not now, never again; Time Out now would destroy him. But Kaoru stopped himself every time, jerking his hand back before turning away and pacing the room like a caged panther. And every time, Kyo would wait until he saw the anger in his master shift to grief – helpless and seething – before moving ever so carefully to offer comfort in the simplest form he knew; allowing Kaoru’s arms to wrap around him and hold him with bruising force.

_‘He needs you… **I** need you…’_

**“I want to hear your voice more...”**

Shinya wasn’t handling it very well either; he’d shut down almost entirely, sinking into an apathetic sort of depression, silent and moving with a mechanical slowness through his days. He never cried where he could be seen, but he often showed up to dinner with blood-shot eyes and an imperceptibly-quivering lower lip, picking at his food with listless disinterest and hardly eating any of it. He had been given sleeping pills as well. Die… Kyo worried for Die. No one had seen or heard from him in the week since the incident. Kaoru said that the redhead was hunting down whoever had attacked their brother, and that he wouldn’t stop or come home until the perpetrator was in their grasp, but the more time went on, the more Kyo worried that something had happened to him.

_‘We all need you, Totchi… did we ever tell you…?’_

**“I want to be here more, so badly.”**

“’S a pretty song…”

At that raspy voice, Kyo’s heart skipped into his throat and he stopped singing, whipping around to stare at the massive bed in the middle of the room. “To-… Toshiya?”

Toshiya was still lying there, his slender limbs looking so frail attached to the IV and so many machines, his skin so pale against the deep crimson of his bed sheets. He was still motionless, still sickly and delicate-looking, still balanced so precariously between life and death that one could scarcely breathe in his presence for fear of pushing him over to the wrong side. But for the first time in a week, for the first time since the attack, his eyes were open.

“Oh gods, Totchi!” Kyo breathed, tears he’d been so sure he was out of flooding his eyes as he flew across the room to the door, flinging it open and calling out to his escort stationed in the hallway, “Call the doctor! He’s awake!” Slamming the door in the guard’s startled face, he ran back to the bed, breathless under the strain of his relief. “You’re awake… oh, Totchi, you’re awake!”

“Unh… feel like shit… th’ hell happened? D’I get… hit by a car or somethin’?” the blue-haired man slurred with a pained grimace.

Kyo laughed a little, wiping at his eyes and reaching out to grasp the older man’s hand – something he’d found himself doing many times over the past few days. “No, you got stabbed, remember?”

Toshiya looked groggily indignant. “Wha’? _Stabbed?_ Who is… stabbed me? Fuck… ‘s ‘nother damn john, i’n’t it?! Tryin’ t’ get outta payin’ me…”

Kyo shook his head. The doctor had mentioned that should Toshiya wake up, he would likely be a bit disoriented. “No, nothing like that. You don’t do that anymore. We were dancing, remember? At the club? Someone came up behind you and… w-we don’t know who it was. Die’s been gone since it happened, though, hunting the guy down, so we’ll have him soon.”

“Ugh. Fuckin’… rude! Stabbin’ me in the… th’ damn… in my _back!”_

Kyo cracked a watery grin. “Yes, it’s very rude.”

“Wha’s… Why’re you cryin’? Don’ cry, ‘m fine. Been stabbed lo’s of times.”

“You’ve been asleep for a week! You… you lost so much blood and the doctor said you might not-… even when you made it through the surgery, we weren’t sure i-… _when_ you were going to wake up.”

Toshiya frowned blearily at the aborted confessions. The doctor said he might not… what, wake up? At all? Had he really come so close to dying? “Oh…”

The doctor swept into the room then, trailed by his crew of nurses, and Kyo had to tuck himself into a narrow space at the head of the bed to stay out of the way. A dizzying round of tests, careful examinations, and questions flew by as the medical team assessed Toshiya, but Kyo found he couldn’t care about anything other than the fact that his brother was awake. His eyes were open, he was moving, cracking pained smiles and whining fussily, and he was awake. After a week teetering on the razor edge of death, he was alive, and Kyo cried silently, overjoyed. When the doctor took a moment to scribble down some notes from the readings on the machines, apparently very pleased with what he found there, Kyo leaned down to whisper in Toshiya’s ear.

“Gods, Totchi, it’s… I’m so glad you’re okay! I have to go tell Master Kaoru you’re awake, he’ll be so happy.”

“Wassat… wait!” Toshiya called, flapping one hand weakly after the blonde, then dropping it with a wince when the motion aggravated his injuries.

Kyo held back, cocking his head. “What’s wrong?”

Toshiya looked distressed. “I almos’… almost _died_ an’ I di’n’t… I never told Die that I love ‘im… he would never’ve known…”

To their credit, the doctor and nurses tried very hard to appear as though they hadn’t heard those words. Toshiya, Shinya, and Die were like unto demi-gods in their household – beings more and better than the mere mortals they reigned over – so such a longing confession came as a something of a shock to the medical staff.

Kyo smiled and pushed a bit of hair out of the older man’s face. “Well, you’ve gotten a second chance, ne? Not everybody gets those, you know!”

“Second chance? Aa… I won’… won’ waste it… my Die…”

The doctor put a hand on Kyo’s arm to catch his attention. “You can tell Mister Niikura that it looks like Mister Hara is going be alright. He’s going to be on bedrest for quite a while, though.”

Kyo grinned and whipped around, ducking past a nurse and running out of the room. His escort yelled something indistinguishable behind him, but he didn’t stop or slow, simply calling out over his shoulder, “Hurry up, Tatsuaki!”

He heard a distant curse and dismissed it entirely. There were two men that alternated days watching over him while he was out and about in the mansion, and this one generally didn’t seem to like him much regardless of how he behaved, so he didn’t feel all that bad about giving him some trouble. Besides, his master had demanded to be informed the moment Toshiya’s condition changed, so he couldn’t very well dawdle on the way to deliver the news, could he? His heart skipped excitedly and he picked up to an almost reckless speed, vaulting over a long couch in the entry area of the courtesan house and dodging two finely-dressed, startled-looking women to pass into the hall to the main house.

_‘He’s awake!’_

_‘He’s awake and he’s going to be okay!’_

_‘Kaoru will be so happy!’_

More than a few people in the hall faltered and gaped at the wild, ecstatic laugh trailing behind the black-and-blond blur. He didn’t care about any of them, darting around any that blocked his path and completely disregarding all the rest. Kyo blew past the pair of guards standing watch outside Kaoru’s office – offered no resistance because they knew who he was, though Tatsuaki was barred from entry – and skidded to a halt in the center of the room. Panting, he cast about eagerly for his master, frowning a little in confusion when he found the desk to be abandoned. The little porch off to one side that the older man used for smoking was vacant as well.

“He’s downstairs,” a familiar voice called, laced heavily with exhaustion.

Kyo spun, shocked to find Die slumped miserably in a chair near the door. His biggest brother looked absolutely worn ragged, with a week’s worth of stubble on pale cheeks, dark circles under his bloodshot eyes, his clothes – the ones he’d been wearing that night at the club – still stained with Toshiya’s blood, filthy and ragged. A cigarette was burning itself to death in one limp hand, chunks of ash falling unheeded onto his shoe. Even his usually-vibrant hair was a dull, ruddy mess around his face.

“Die! Does this mean you found the guy that hurt Totchi?” Kyo asked excitedly.

_‘He’s back and Totchi’s awake!’_

_‘Everyone is home and safe again!’_

_‘Everything is going to be okay…’_

Die nodded tiredly, gesturing to a door nestled between two bookshelves that Kyo had never noticed before. “Aa. Kaoru’s been questioning him all day.”

“‘All day?’ When did you get back?”

“Late last night. Or… maybe early this morning? Not sure…” Die murmured.

Kyo’s smile dropped a bit. “That long? Have you just been sitting here this whole time?”

Another nod.

“But… why haven’t you gone to see Toshiya? We… didn’t Master Kaoru tell you he… that he…?”

Die cringed, looking away. “Is probably dying? Yeah, he told me.”

“…” Kyo crossed over the room, crouching in front of the redhead. “Die, he’s okay. Toshiya just woke up; he’s going to be okay! You should go see him.”

Relief flashed in the older man’s eyes, but it was quickly overshadowed by bitter despair. “I can’t.”

“What? Why not?”

Die bristled suddenly, snarling, “Because I let him down, I let everyone down! How could I face him now? I was supposed to protect him that night, protect all of you, and I…” he deflated, almost seeming to collapse in on himself, “I failed. He could have died…”

“…But he didn’t.”

“But he almost did! And it would have been my fault if he had!”

“You can’t protect everyone all the time, Die.”

“That’s my _job!_ Don’t you understand?! It’s my job to keep everyone safe, to protect my family. When we go out like that, everyone is counting on me to watch over them. I should have seen that guy coming, I should have stopped him before he got anywhere near Totchi!”

Kyo frowned, chewing on his lip ring thoughtfully. He recognized the sound of words that had been repeating themselves again and again in an internal battery of self-flagellation. Nothing he said would change the redhead’s mind. “…Well then, you owe him an apology, don’t you?”

Die’s head came up, looking abjectly miserable.

Kyo stood, looking down his nose at his brother. “Don’t hide from him. If you fucked up so badly, you don’t deserve to dodge him for your own comfort, so go apologize and face the consequences of your failure like a man.”

Die looked near tears, but he nodded a little and stood. “You… you’re right.”

“Maybe, if you’re sorry enough, he’ll absolve you, and if not, I’m sure he’ll tell you what you have to do to atone and earn his forgiveness.”

Die nodded again, drifting out of the office with an exhausted, but purposeful stride. Kyo sighed and moved to the door between the bookcases, moving down a set of steep, narrow stairs carefully.

_‘I hope Totchi’s still awake when he gets there…’_

_‘I would hate for him to stew in that bullshit any longer than he already has.’_

_‘I didn’t want to interfere, but they’re both such idiots sometimes…’_

Grinning fondly, Kyo had very little time to ponder Die and Toshiya’s respective issues before his surroundings became a more pressing interest. It was cold in the area under Kaoru’s office; all the walls and floor were made of smooth concrete that chilled his bare feet to the bone. At the bottom of the stairs was a short hallway with three heavy steel doors on each side. Padding silently down the hall, he peered into the small, barred window on one of the doors and found a tiny cell on the other side, containing only a steel bench with a thin mattress mounted on one wall and a toilet and sink tucked into the corner.

_‘Master has a creepy dungeon under his office…?’_

_‘Weird…’_

He didn’t really care, though. All he cared about was telling Kaoru the good news, if he could ever find him. Muffled voices to one side caught his attention. At the end of the hall, another heavy door stood open, leading into a larger-looking room with a large, steel basin sink mounted on the wall in his view. As Kyo started towards it, Kaoru passed in front of the doorway. The older man was devoid of his jacket, leaning down to wash his hands in the sink with his white shirtsleeves rolled precisely up over his elbows. Kyo grinned, his excitement returning full force, and ran the rest of the way down the hall.

Kaoru barely had time to spot him out of the corner of his eye and turn to face him before the blonde took a flying leap at him. He caught the younger man out of reflex, startled as arms clamped around his neck and lips pressed firmly against his own. When the blonde fell back, grinning brilliantly up at him, all he could do was stare back in utter confusion. Even before the past week of desolate grief, he didn’t think he’d ever seen his pet so unequivocally happy. It completely changed his face, something unbearably sweet coming from someone typically very solemn and introspective.

“Kyo?”

“Toshiya woke up! He’s awake and the doctor said he’s going to be okay!”

It was Kyo’s turn to be caught off guard. Kaoru gaped at him for a split second, then his face broke into a grin of the purest relief and he laughed, picking his pet up by the waist and swinging him around like he weighed nothing. Kyo squeaked, wide-eyed as he dug his fingers into Kaoru’s shoulders, unused to such handling, but smiled shakily again when he was set back down.

“I knew it. I fucking knew it!” the older man crowed with fierce pride, whipping around to grin viciously at the third man in the room. “And aren’t you so fucking _lucky?”_

Kyo glanced over, having completely overlooked their company, and went sheet white in startled horror. A man he just barely recognized as the one who had stabbed Toshiya was tied down to a heavy steel chair bolted to the floor, thick clamps pinning down his wrists and ankles to the furniture. He was stripped down to soiled briefs, and every square centimeter of his body was covered in horrible-looking tangles of black veins, emanating from dozens of grotesque lumps in his skin whose centers bled thinly. His muddy green eyes were wild, bloodshot and rolling madly in his skull, he was gasping for breath, and saliva dribbled frothily from the corners of his mouth. He looked to be in the aftershocks of a most profound agony.

The captive was huge – a bear of a man, the same caliber as those Kaoru hired on as security personnel – but he cowered with a strangled whimper as the hawk-eyed man stalked over to him. Kaoru’s hand hovered over a rolling steel tray by the chair, upon which a vast collection of needle-thin rods with loops on one end rested, delicately lifting one and twirling it lovingly between his fingers. Kyo watched on, entranced, as his master ran his free hand ever-so-gently over the man’s left arm, and the man gibbered in terror in an unexpected Russian accent, pleading hysterically for mercy in a voice all-but shot from screaming.

_“Please, I told you everything I know, I swear to God I told you everything I know, please, no more, I told you everything, I swear, I told you everything, no more, please, no more!”_

“Oh, I know you did, I know,” Kaoru crooned sweetly. “And because you’ve been so cooperative, I’m going to let you die now. Would you like that, Mr. Petrov?”

‘Petrov’ nodded gratefully. _“Please, yes, Master Niikura, please, thank you, **thank you…** ”_

Kaoru cocked his head, watching as he slipped his thumb through the loop on the needle, pressing the straight end against the man’s upper arm. The protective sheath around the tip slid back along the shaft, allowing the poisoned needle underneath to pierce the man’s skin. Almost immediately, spidery red veins began to spread from the site of the injection, and Petrov began to writhe uncontrollably in the chair, utterly horrified and near-blind with the sudden pain.

“If your heart doesn’t burst, you’ll be dead in about five minutes,” Kaoru informed him calmly as he undid one of the man’s wrist cuffs and both of his ankles, leaving him attached to the chair only by his right wrist. He picked up another needle then, pushing the tray away. “And you know? I’m in such a good mood now; I’ll even give you this. It’ll kill off all of your pain receptors, and you can die in peace. Aren’t I kind?”

Kaoru turned away then, setting the needle on the floor in front of the chair before collecting his jacket and returning to Kyo. The blonde was staggered, watching Petrov strain frantically against the last bond keeping him tied to down, tearing his wrist horrifically as he tried to get to the needle that would end his torment.

_“I can’t… I can’t reach it! Please, I can’t reach it, please?!”_

Kaoru looked back over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. “Oh? How unfortunate for you. It seems like your right hand is holding you back a bit. And how curious… that’s the hand you stabbed my brother with, if I’m not mistaken.”

Petrov sobbed hysterically, an anguished wail bubbling out of his throat as the red veins spread and spread and spread.

“Yes, I believe it is. How terribly unfortunate for you.”

Kaoru put a hand against the small of Kyo’s back, guiding him out of the room. The blonde twisted his head around to watch for as long as he could, as the man who so nearly killed Toshiya began thrashing against his bond, grasping helplessly at the needle while agony overtook him. Just before they passed through the doorway, the thick bones in the man’s wrist gave way, snapping with a sickening crunch and a rasping scream. Even then, Petrov could not pull free to reach his relief. Kyo swallowed thickly, desperately thankful that breakfast had been too long ago for him to throw it up.

“You feel bad for him?” Kaoru asked as they climbed the stairs and passed into the office again, warm sunlight trickling merrily through the windows on the back wall.

Kyo shook his head slowly, trembling a little. He couldn’t bring himself to pity the man, after a week spent mourning the very real possibility of Toshiya’s death, but still, “He… he was in so much pain… I’ve never seen anyone die before.”

“Strictly speaking, you still haven’t. I’ve got him from here, you’re dismissed,” Kaoru informed Tatsuaki in passing, the guard having been waiting more-or-less patiently in the hallway. Tatsuaki looked peeved, but Kaoru paid him no mind. “As for his pain… there are only three people in the world against whom I will suffer absolutely no grievances, and he tried to _kill_ one of them. He got off light only because he didn’t succeed.”

Kyo shuddered. “D-… Did he at least tell you why…?”

Kaoru scowled. “He was hired. He didn’t know who, though, he was approached by a man in a mask calling himself ‘the Falcon.’ Bastard just handed him a stack of cash and profiles for Shinya, Toshiya, and Die, and told Petrov to pick one. He’d been waiting for an opening to get one of them for three weeks; following us around every time we were out during the weekend, since he couldn’t find a way to sneak onto the mansion grounds. That was the only useful information he had – everything else was just crying about his kids, living back in Russia with his ex-wife. As if I care about that.”

Kyo thought on that, frowning, but it didn’t really make sense to him. “I don’t get it… the Falcon person didn’t care who died? And why did he only want one of them? Is that… is that normal?”

Kaoru grunted, slipping through the door into Toshiya’s suite. “Not usually, but it depends on the motive behind the hit. I’m being fucked with. Whoever hired Petrov wanted to hurt me, but not ruin the family entirely. There are a fair number of people that dislike me enough to want to do that, and only a small handful actually have the balls to do so openly, with their own names attached, so as things stand now, we’re playing the waiting game with an unknown opponent.”

Kyo swallowed nervously, wrapping one hand unconsciously around the spider pendant at his throat. It was one thing to know, intellectually, that he had been sold to a mafia family; it was another issue entirely to actually witness and experience the consequences of that lifestyle. He felt… _threatened_ ; inexperienced and unarmed on a battlefield he couldn’t see and had no idea how to defend himself in. Before they reached the bedroom, his fingers found their way to Kaoru’s jacket sleeve, tugging gently.

Kaoru stopped, looking back at him. “Yes, pet?”

“Would… would you be upset… if I died?” Kyo wondered uncertainly.

“Are you kidding? After all the trouble of training you? I’d be _pissed.”_ Kaoru shook his head. “Plus it’d be a pain in the ass to find anyone else that gave head half as good as yours, or looked so damnably sweet in my webs.”

Kyo found that he was immeasurably comforted by those words. Kaoru knew all the tricks and ploys of this darkened battlefield. So long as he continued to keep the man happy and until he was released from his duties, his master would protect him from harm, he was certain. When they turned the corner, they were both mildly surprised to find Shinya lingering in the doorway to Toshiya’s crimson lair, the sweetest smile painted across his face. As they approached, he spared them a glance to hold one finger to his lips in an entreaty for silence. Kyo peered around Kaoru to see what the big secret was. What he saw made him smile as well.

Die was curled up on Toshiya’s bed on top of the covers, curled as close to the blue-haired man as he could get without actually touching him. The only place they made contact was where his head was resting on Toshiya’s shoulder, and where one arm was wrapped around his shoulders to twine long fingers gently through red hair. Toshiya’s cheek was pressed against the top of Die’s head, and both men had the barest remains of tears on their faces. Even so – with the faintest smiles on their lips, understanding and a new, fragile sort of love filling every space between them – they were perfect picture of blissful slumber and intimacy.

“They look so happy,” Shinya whispered.

“It’s about fucking time,” Kyo murmured, delighted.

Kaoru looked down at his pet again, a wry smile tugging his lips. “This is your doing, I imagine. I hear such stories about you, sometimes… ridiculous things about mind-reading and clairvoyance, but I certainly can’t deny the changes I see from time to time, ever since I got you. If you die, wherever am I going to get another prophet?”

Shinya snorted indelicately, holding back a grin.

Kyo just blinked up at his master, head cocked to one side curiously.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The song above ( **[Amber](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frwVUbKqwQ4)** ) is intellectual property of Dir en grey. I do not own it, or profit from its use._


	31. Chapter 31

_A caterpillar crept along the gnarled branches of an old maple tree, meandering languidly through life with hardly a care or ambition in the world – a simple creature with simple needs. It was secure in its little world, protected by the tree’s sprawling bulk. Spotting a particularly green leaf at the end of its branch, it began to make its unhurried way toward the treat. One day, it knew, it would become something better, something ineffably beautiful and incomparably free. But it didn’t know how to instigate that change, so for now, it contented itself with an uncomplicated life._

_A breeze swept through suddenly, cold and fierce, knocking the caterpillar from its perch and sending it tumbling uncontrollably through the branches of the tree until it came to a jarring halt mid-air. Dazed, upside-down, it tried to right itself again only to find itself restrained, ensnared by the sticky silk of a spider’s web. Panic struck the fragile insect, flopping and thrashing with all its might to free itself, but to no avail. It was trapped._

_Drawn by the havoc of the caterpillar’s struggle, the web’s master came out to investigate. Long, spiky, segmented legs picked their way delicately across the threads, supporting a glossy black body with a brilliant crimson cross splashed across its belly as glittering onyx eyes took in their newest pray with distinctly predatory regard. Slowly, ever **so** slowly – taking its sweet time, as it was in no rush – the spider began to wrap the caterpillar in silk, restricting the pitiful creature even as it flailed in frightened denial. Eventually, the caterpillar was completely encased in a tight silk cocoon, and its struggles abated entirely at length._

_Time passed – an hour, a day, a week, an eternity – before the insect began to stir again. Its silk prison had loosened while it rested, and it found itself pulling free of the threads, forming a hole and pressing itself out through it. The spider watched on, front legs crossed lazily in a very un-spider-like pose, as a slender body came exposed, followed by paper-thin wings that fluttered delicately as they came loose. Sunlight flashed off of magnificent dragonscale gold wings, shimmering with incandescent undertones and shot through with glossy black streaks and designs. The new butterfly basked in the warm sun, and the spider was pleased with its creation._

_Somewhere nearby, a bird of prey shrieked ominously, its features and vision obscured by a falconer’s hood. On a branch looming over the spider’s web, a snake lay coiled in wait, forked tongue testing the air patiently. Thunder crashed, a bolt of lightning piercing the sky in a blazing arch of white fire, striking the tree at its core. The world exploded with a **roar** -_

Kyo jerked awake in his bed, breath caught in his throat. He laid there for a moment, wondering what had sent his heart pounding so fiercely, until another peal of thunder rolled through the sky outside, shaking the room around him in a dull vibration. Storms always brought him strange dreams – showing him too much and too little of things he rarely understood – and made him ache with loneliness. He wouldn’t get any more sleep this night, if he remained alone. Dragging himself up out of his bed, he crept out of his room and into Kaoru’s, coming to a halt at the foot of the master bed.

He bit his lip, hesitating, wavering back and forth on the balls of his feet with obvious uncertainty. His master usually gave him the choice of which bed he would sleep in on any given night – although sometimes the choice was taken away when Kaoru’s desires dictated one or the other – and tonight Kyo had chosen his own. He wanted to change his selection, but it was after midnight now, and he worried about the risk of waking the older man. Kaoru could be decidedly pissy upon being woken, particularly if it was before he actually needed to get up. He stood there for a long while, weighing his options.

“You’re hovering,” a low voice grumbled, made husky by sleep.

Kyo jumped a little, startled. “S-… sorry… I didn't want to wake you…”

Kaoru sighed and propped himself up on one elbow, running his other hand through his hair in a halfhearted attempt to bring it to order while regarding his pet curiously. He took in eyes that were just a little too wide – pleading – and hands that fidgeted restlessly with undefined intent, contemplating their meaning before speaking again. “Bad dreams?”

Kyo shifted his weight side to side, glancing at the window. “Kind of…”

Lighting flashed outside – flooding the room with sharp white light for a split second – followed closely by a low boom of thunder, and the blonde shivered unhappily.

Kaoru raised an eyebrow. “The storm’s upsetting you?”

Kyo nodded. That wasn’t _precisely_ the issue; he enjoyed thunderstorms for the sound and the feel of them, the tangible power carried in wind, rain, and heavy black clouds. It was just that he never felt safe to open himself up to that raw force if no one else was around to keep him grounded while his mind was riding the tempest. But that was a difficult thing to explain and Kaoru’s guess was close enough, and the tattooed arm lifting one side of the blanket in invitation indicated that it was reason enough for his master to grant him his wish. He crawled in quickly, before Kaoru could change his mind, and settled into a comfortable curl as the older man draped himself languidly over him. Kaoru wasn’t necessarily a cuddler, but he frequently enjoyed using his pet as a pillow. Tonight, Kyo would easily trade the hollow ache of solitude for his master’s bony angles.

For a moment, rain beating against the window was the only sound between them, before Kaoru broke the silence again. “You know, pet, it’s difficult to give you the things that you want if you never speak up and tell me what they are.”

Kyo blinked sleepily up at the man, already beginning to drift a bit. “But… you always give me what I need… what else would I ask for?”

Kaoru cracked a lazy smile. His previous companions had all been courtesans, and certainly none of _them_ had ever had any difficulty voicing their endless frivolous desires. He found it a bit funny that he would have to pry such things out of this one. “Wants and needs are distinct concepts, and I occasionally enjoy indulging my pets in the former.”

“Oh…” What Kaoru enjoyed was invariably Kyo’s responsibility, and he cast about his drifting thoughts for an offering. “I want… mmm… I guess… the only thing I want... is to go home.”

Kaoru raised an eyebrow. “Why? You know your old apartment has been gutted and rented out to someone new.”

Kyo shook his head, yawning as he shifted just a little to ease the grind of Kaoru’s sharp hip against his side. “No, not there. I want… white miso and the clacking of kimono looms… to bring fried tofu to the kitsune guarding Inari shrines and to stand in a big open field for hanami, without the lights and noise and crowds of the city. The air here is poisonous – oppressive and corruptive… spiritless… I want to see Kyoto again.”

Kaoru hummed thoughtfully, threading a hand through the younger man’s hair, but gave no other indications of interest otherwise, positive or negative. Were he in a more attentive state, Kyo would have been able to see the wheels in the man’s head turning with curious intent, and wondered at their direction. As it was, the blonde’s eyes drifted shut, lulled by his master’s warmth and the steady rumble of the storm outside, echoing in his chest and fighting to pull his mind loose from its moorings into wind-swept flight. An errant thought came to his tongue before he could process it into something more intelligible, but, utterly content, he couldn’t be bothered to elaborate on it.

“And I want the falcon and the snake to stay out of my dreams…”

Kaoru snorted, mildly bemused at the comment, and closed his eyes as well.

~*~

In a meticulously clean room with soothing, grey-blue walls, a slender figure lay alone in an oversized bed. Large eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, striving to ignore the piteous cries coming from the next room, and failing miserably. Eventually, Shinya caved in and threw his covers aside, sliding out of bed and crossing out of his bedroom, bare feet utterly silent on hardwood and carpet alike. In his living room area, he bent over a small playpen and lifted out the unfortunate creature that had been interrupting his sleep for the last hour, ever since the thunderstorm has started up.

The little chihuahua puppy – Miyu, he called her – had been a birthday gift from Toshiya, although a somewhat late one given the blue-haired man’s condition on the actual day. Housebreaking had been an appalling challenge and she was in something of a nipping phase at the moment as her puppy teeth were falling out, but Shinya absolutely adored her. She kept him company when other humans were too complicated and too nerve-wracking for him to deal with, demanding only food and a scratch on the back (and then maybe more food). She entertained him in the evening, filling time that he had once spent reading or watching television in detached solitude with endless distractions in the form of the endearingly destructive games only puppies can get away with. She gave him a purpose – a living creature to hold and take care of, to make happy and to be relied upon by – which he hadn’t realized he had so desperately craved until now.

All of which made it really hard to ignore her when she cried in fear of the storm.

He knew better than to coddle her or try to coo and reassure her – it would only encourage her fears, turn this fussing into a habit for the future – but he didn’t have to leave her to deal with it all alone. So, shooting off a half-formed prayer that she wouldn’t have to use the bathroom during the night, he plopped the squishy little creature on the pillow next to his own and laid back down. She ignored the suggested sleeping place, coming instead to cuddle into the curve between his neck and shoulder, her nose a distinct discomfort against his ear. All the same, he fell asleep with a smile on his face and a warmth in his chest he hadn’t felt in longer than he could remember.

~*~

Die lived in a world of comparisons. The middle of three sons, he had grown up always held against his brothers… and always found wanting. He was never as athletic as his older brother; his trophies always just a little bit smaller, just one place further down in the rankings, and that made them worthless. He was never as smart as his younger brother; his GPA just a little bit lower, his reviews just a little less glowing, and that made them abysmal. It was an endless cycle of him pouring his heart and soul into all that he did, falling always just short of perfection and being bitterly chastised for it, succumbing to hopeless discouragement for short stretches before trying something new. He had been an optimist, once upon a time. Eventually, though – around the time he turned fifteen – he’d grown tired of always falling short and given up trying to make his parents proud.

On a frustrated whim, he’d sought out the most obnoxious shade of red he could find and dyed his hair. Die had always hated the color red, felt that it did nothing but hide misery under false pretenses of beauty. Pain hid under red, red blood; thorns hid under red, red roses; poison ran within red, red berries; lies curled behind red, red, lips; and the dripping crimson sky at sunset heralded the arrival of the denizens of the night, wicked and seeking only to consume those that dwelt in the light. He had taken that hated color and made it his own, wrapped it around himself in a protective shroud and allowed himself to be the disgrace his parents had convinced him he would always be. He had gone to the streets, becoming one of those vile night creatures and lashing out in a rash of violent crimes that saw him in a juvenile detention facility before his sixteenth birthday.

It was there that he’d met Kaoru, and been introduced to a family that loved him unequivocally for just who he was. He got to be whoever he felt like being, never a botched reflection of anyone else, and he bloomed under the easy acceptance of the lifestyle for a long time. Until he started looking at himself… and looking at his new brothers… and finding himself wanting in his own eyes. Thus began a new, self-inflicted cycle of criticism; a black and white world where other people’s good qualities became his own dysfunctions, where falling short meant falling forever into an endless spiral of failure and disappointment. 

Kaoru was so goddamned cunning; against him, Die found himself to be absolutely brutish, laughably simple-minded and graceless. Toshiya’s near-ethereal beauty, taking so many forms but never once falling short of breath-taking, made him feel homely and gawky, like a muddy stone next to a polished sapphire. Compared to Shinya’s internal fortitude, Die saw himself as weak-willed and petty, a frail child in the shadow of the younger man’s indomitable dignity and stalwart determination to survive. And – less so, but more and more as time went by – Kyo’s unwavering desire to take care of those he felt kinship with made Die feel selfish, apathetic and blind to the needs of those he loved. He hid it as best he could, beneath a protective shield of cocksure braggery and endless teasing jokes, because he couldn't stand the thought of being pitied by those whose opinions he so deeply valued. Besides, if people were laughing with him, they couldn't see through to his many shortcomings to laugh at him.

It was only here, in this room, that all of that seemed to just… fade away. Here, the endless sea of red spoke to him only of passion, of heated love and the deepest pleasures of the body and soul. Here, where the only reflective surface was Toshiya’s eyes, he could see himself only how the younger man saw him, and his insecurities melted into nothing under that smoldering gaze. Toshiya thought he was beautiful. Toshiya thought he was clever. Toshiya thought he was strong and caring and funny and perfect, and none of the self-deprecating whispers in the back of Die’s mind could ever do anything to sway that determined appraisal. Because Toshiya allowed Die to be something he’d never been before – to feel things he’d never felt, that burned away the darkness inside him – Die felt driven to impart that same sense of awe and wonder on him.

Toshiya lay now in the center of that crimson bed, back propped up against so many pillows, watching him with a half-hidden smile and those infinite, adoring eyes. Die stripped off his shirt, dropping it carelessly to the floor before kneeling onto the mattress, crawling his way up the length of his younger lover’s body. They met in the sweetest of kisses, lips sliding gently against one another, tongues sliding and exploring and tasting with a slow-building heat. Toshiya sighed happily and Die pulled back just enough to nip his lower lip before diverting his kisses to newer territories.

This would be their first time together, following excruciating weeks of waiting as Toshiya recovered from his injuries and both of them awaited the results of STI tests. Toshiya had failed such tests multiple times in the past – never with anything that couldn’t be wiped out with a few rounds of antibiotics; a testament to his phenomenal luck – but this time they both had come back clean. Toshiya fully intended, with every fiber of his being, to never do anything that might necessitate another of those tests. It went against a lifetime of promiscuous tendencies, but as long as he had Die, he would never lay a hand or mouth on another person, nor allow such to be laid on him. He would be faithful, and that alone spoke volumes of his feelings for the older man.

One of Toshiya’s hands tangled into fiery red hair as his beloved's mouth licked, nipped, and kissed its way down to his chin, under his jaw line and up to his ear, the lobe slowly drawn into wet, hot suction that made him gasp just a little. He tilted his head to one side just a little in a silent, instinctive entreaty for more. Die happily obliged, lavishing attention on that ear by ever-so-gently nibbling his way along the outer curve of the cartilage and running the very tip of his tongue along the sensitive underside. When Toshiya let out a shivery moan of appreciation, the redhead changed course again, making his way leisurely down the graceful column of his lover’s long neck.

Coming upon the obstacle presented by Toshiya’s shirt, Die slid one hand under the blue-haired man’s back to help support him as the other hand began to lift the garment away. Toshiya grabbed the hem in both hands and carefully helped remove the shirt, range of motion still a bit stiff but expanding daily. Die lowered him back into the pillows, sparing a moment to leave a butterfly kiss just above the newly-sealed pink ridge that had once been a gaping hole in the younger man’s abdomen before returning back to the spot he’d just left. His lips left a warm, pleasantly-tingling trail down Toshiya’s neck and across his collar bone, licking languidly over one strong shoulder and nipping playfully down one defined bicep, cradling the limb almost reverently in both hands. When he pressed a sweet kiss to the needle scars on the soft inside of an elbow, Toshiya whispered his name with such undeniable love that Die could only shiver in response.

He teased his way down the slender forearm to play at Toshiya’s fingers; nibbling at the tip of the pointer, running his tongue up the length of the middle, sucking the entire ring digit into his mouth. Beneath him, Toshiya squirmed, his breathy sighs and indulgent shivers slowly turning to needy moans and impatient tremors. The blue-haired man’s long legs pressed together at the knee, thighs sliding against one another, coyly seeking friction and relief in a display of arousal that was somewhat feminine and completely for show; a learned response, not intentionally dishonest, but not natural to him either. A habitual gesture designed to incite the flames of loveless, transitory partners, to drive the encounter summarily toward its inevitable conclusion.

Toshiya understood sex as a fulfillment of physical desires, but had no experience with it as a form of bonding or as an emotional expression. He had no concept of how two people could speak to one another in this manner, with no words and perfect understanding between them. Die had his work cut out for him, stalwartly refusing to let his and Toshiya’s first time together be nothing more than animal lust, and he accepted the challenge without hesitation.

He made his way back up to Toshiya’s shoulder, across his collarbone again, and paid similar attention to his other arm, his other scars, his other fingers. This time when he took one of those long digits into his mouth, he got a deep, rough moan in response, though it was quickly swallowed. It was an encouraging lapse in Toshiya’s automatic efforts to display and perform. From there, Die moved on to his lover’s chest. He trailed delicate kisses along the underside of one smooth, hard pectoral, hands splaying out against silky skin and sliding down the sides of a narrow waist. By the time he made it up to one dusky brown nipple and flicked just the tip of his tongue over the tiny nub, it was enough to make Toshiya groan loudly, grinding up against him in a more instinctive demonstration of desire.

Die bit back a grin at the reaction, holding his squirmy lover in place with both hands on the younger man’s thin hips as he lipped teasingly at the nipple, running his tongue in a circle around it before kissing-licking-nipping his way over to the other side. Toshiya was beside himself with bliss, both hands now tangled in Die’s hair as he lost himself to the flood of sensation washing over him. No one had ever been so attentive with him before, had focused on his pleasure and worked to draw it out so slowly, so thoroughly from every part of his body. Part of him wanted to rush for the big finish as he was accustomed to, part of him wanted to this foreplay to never end, and all of him loved Die so much for treating him this way that his heart ached under the force of it. He settled for whimpering the redhead’s name and begging him for more.

Die let out a soft, appreciative hum, kissing his way down the shallow trench between abdominal muscles – sidetracking once more at that sensitive new scar, pouring his love into the injury that had almost taken Toshiya away from him, but instead brought them closer than ever – to delve his tongue into the younger man’s tiny navel. The feeling was ticklish and erotic all at once, something Toshiya had done to others but never actually experienced, and it made him gasp, hips jerking reflexively. Wide hands – tattooed here, scarred there; the calloused and skilled hands of a professional killer – eased open the fly of the younger man’s pants, pushing the cloth down to clear a path for himself.

Slowly, by torturously exquisite centimeters at a time, Die made his way down one slender leg, loving each bit of flesh as it was revealed to him by the steady removal of fitted black jeans. He discovered an unusual sensitive spot on the inside of Toshiya’s knee and lavished it with attention, latching on with a steady suction and rolling his teeth over the flesh until a deep, dark hickey was formed and Toshiya was crying out his need. Pressing a light kiss to the arch of one foot as it cleared the hold of the pants, he spared a moment to admire his lover in all his natural splendor and discard his own pants before making his way up the other leg. For symmetry’s sake, and because he loved the noises the blue-haired man was making, he left another love mark on the over-sensitive spot on the opposite knee, continuing his trip up only when Toshiya’s grip on his hair became painful.

Toshiya had lost all of the pretenses and practiced motions of a courtesan by then. He was rutting his hips mindlessly into the air, cock jutting hard and heavy from a neatly-manicured patch of hair, head arched back as he pleaded for Die to do something, anything to relieve his ache. When he had dissolved to the point where all he could say was Die’s name and half-formed demands for more, the redhead gave in and wrapped his lips around the younger man’s straining erection. Toshiya’s ecstatic cry rode in on the back of a ground-shaking peal of thunder, the very air in the room shivering under the force of both.

What Die lacked in experience, he more than made up for in determination; sucking and licking enthusiastically at the flesh filling out his mouth. One hand held Toshiya’s hip, keeping him from bucking too wildly while the other teased and stroked at the base of his cock that Die couldn’t quite fit. Graceless as it was, it was all Toshiya needed. After so much teasing, and being entirely unused to being on the receiving end of such ministrations, it took hardly any time at all before he was tugging at Die’s hair and trying to choke out a warning. The effort was too much on some accounts, and not enough on others; he managed to get Die off his arousal just in time for shots of pearly, sticky white to splatter half into the redhead’s mouth, half down his chin and neck.

There was a long, awkward moment where Die just stared up at Toshiya, utterly bewildered, and Toshiya panted, wide-eyed and floundering hopelessly between bliss and mortification. Then Die grinned, tongue sliding out to collect the cum gathered on his lips. He just looked so damn pleased with himself, Toshiya couldn’t help but let out a shaky laugh, grabbing a wet-nap from the little box on his nightstand to wipe as much of the mess away as he could with hands that trembled with exertion. Die just beamed up at him, turning up his chin to bask happily in the attention, waiting until he was acceptably clean before stretching out beside his younger lover.

“Sorry…” Toshiya murmured, grinning bashfully.

“Oh don’t be,” Die purred cheekily. “I know you couldn’t help yourself. I’m just too damn sexy, ne?”

Toshiya’s eyelids lowered just a bit, nothing but deep-seated love and fond adoration in his gaze. “Absolutely.”

Die blushed a little at the heartfelt honesty in the younger man’s voice, some of his awe and insecurity showing through as his cocksure bravado slipped. “H-Heh… anyways, I didn’t mind.”

“Mmm… I suppose it’s my turn then?” Toshiya wondered, one hand creeping its way to the heat between the redhead’s thighs.

Die caught his wrist with a faint, almost reluctant smile. “Nope.”

Toshiya pouted. “What? What not?”

“I don’t want you moving around that much while you’re still healing. Even this much has to be hurting.”

“Well… a little, but not that much, I’ll be fine. Come on, that’s not fair!”

“You’ll just have to make it up to me later with something extra special, then, won’t you?” Die winked, rolling off the bed and moving towards the bathroom. “I can take care of myself for tonight.”

Toshiya caught his hand, biting his lip to hold back a smile caught between hope, curiosity, and desire. “Can I at least… watch?”

“…”

Thunder rumbled overhead as a slow grin split Die’s lips and his knees hit the mattress.

 

 


	32. Chapter 32

The past couple hours may not take the record for the worst time in Kyo’s life – that honor remaining firmly held by the two days spent in Time Out – but they were pretty high up on the list. Curled into as small a ball as he could manage on a cushioned seat, his head pillowed on Kaoru’s thigh, the blonde had spent what felt like an eternity trying to steady his breathing enough to keep his stomach from forcibly vacating breakfast. He hadn’t known where they were going, told only that Kaoru had business in another prefecture for the next week and that he would be going along to keep his master company, but he didn’t have long to worry about it before he found himself focused entirely on fighting to retain some small shred of dignity through his nausea. The motion sickness bag kindly provided by the bullet train attendants had, luckily, never become necessary, but it had been a very close thing for a very long time.

Kaoru had spent the trip dozing, one hand stroking absently over his pet’s hair, periodically peeking one eye half open to watch the terrain speed by through the window to his left or to check on the massive dog sprawled out and snoring on the floor of the private car. The dog – Epyon – was Kaoru’s favorite of the guard dogs reared on his property; a dark brindle bitch of only two-thirds the bulk of any of the males, but no less competent a protector for her smaller size. She also had the papers and credentials necessary for a service dog, so she was allowed to accompany Kaoru wherever he might go and he had indicated that her services were all the escort he would need on this particular trip. Her imposing presence did nothing to sooth Kyo’s nerves; he got the feeling she would be serving as his leash on top of her sentinel duties.

It wasn’t until they were well off the train and partway through the station that Kyo had been able to get himself steadied again; had looked up and realized where they were. It took a long moment of staring for him to fully register and believe what he saw. The very modern architecture of the immense, multi-story complex of highly geometric storefronts, open air but covered overhead by a heavy arch of steel and glass webbing, was unmistakable as anything other than Kyoto-eki. Without any demands or negotiations or bargaining, Kaoru had taken him _home_.

It had been, for the better part of an hour, too much for Kyo to take in. They stopped at a coffee shop for drinks and lunch; outside the station, they caught up with a man holding a sign reading only “Niikura” and were loaded into a limo; they drove out of the city and across the countryside. Through all of it, all the blonde could do was stare about himself in numb incredulity, cheeks flushed with astonished gratitude as he soaked up the sights, sounds, and smells of his homeland. Kaoru was terribly amused. Finally, when they parked at the end of a winding driveway in front of a home that was somewhat smaller than Kaoru’s mansion – though no less magnificent – and a jovial voice called out to them, Kyo snapped out of his trance.

“I thought I smelled a sewer rat!”

Startled, Kyo turned away from staring at the grove of cherry blossom trees sprawling out across the lawns to look for the speaker. Descending the front stairs was a man who so flawlessly matched the elegance of their surroundings – even dressed as he was in a casual black button-down shirt and fitted jeans – it was impossible to believe he was anything but the lord of this land. He was a few years older than Kaoru and slightly taller, with purely aristocratic features framed by dark, red-gold hair, the regality of his appearance dulled only slightly by the blinding grin pulling incessantly at his lips. Kyo gaped a little when he saw that the man was looking straight at his master.

_‘Did he just… call Master Kaoru a_ **_sewer rat_ ** _?’_

Kaoru flashed an answering grin. “Yoshiki, you useless fop, don’t tell me you’d already forgotten I was coming?”

“Forgotten my favorite piece of guttertrash? Never!” The man beamed, wrapping Kaoru into a back-slapping hug that the shorter man was unusually tolerant of. “It’s been far too long, Kaoru, welcome to my home.”

“It wouldn’t have been so long if you’d showed up for Christmas, you poncey bastard,” Kaoru scolded, not unkindly.

Kyo was completely lost. He’d never seen Kaoru speak to anyone so rudely, and he’d _certainly_ never seen anyone insult the man to his face. Even Die’s customary teasing never went quite this far, yet his master seemed entirely unfazed by what seemed like a terribly offensive greeting. Then that aristocratic gaze fell on Kyo and he froze, staring up at the man like a startled prey animal caught unawares.

“And who is this, now?” Yoshiki wondered, still smiling.

One corner of Kaoru’s mouth quirked up a bit. “This is Kyo Nishimura. He’s my current companion.”

“Is that so? Rather unlike your usual attendants, if I may say so. What manner of creature might you be, Mr. Nishimura, to have fallen into this rogue spider’s web?”

Kyo faltered. He almost never had to deal with people beyond Kaoru’s little inner circle since the Christmas party, and he had no idea how he was supposed to behave around Yoshiki. Was he friend enough to be honest with? Or was he just a business contact? Were he a more practiced courtesan, Kyo would have known exactly how to flirt and engage in playful little word games with any and all of his master’s associates, but as he was, he could only be as diplomatically vague as possible until he established a better understanding of the situation.

Shifting his weight, he tilted his head a bit and spoke uncertainly. “I am… whatever my master needs me to be. I have been a banshee, a peacock, a butterfly, and a prophet for him.”

Yoshiki laughed, delighted. “Truly? How charming!”

“He can also be something of a hen from time to time,” Kaoru added, sparing Kyo a faint wink, “And a warumono when the mood strikes him. But he suits me well enough. Now, are you going to invite us inside or keep us out on your lawn all day?”

“Of course, of course! I’ll have the help tend to your things.” Yoshiki turned, leading them back up the stairs and into the house. “You know you’re always welcome in my home, but I have to wonder what brings you all the way out here out of the blue?”

“We require some assistance. You remember the gentleman I have overseeing my holdings in the entertainment sector of the business?”

“Mr. Hara? That delightful young man with the blue hair and the odd laugh? Of course.”

“He was attacked a few weeks ago – a botched hit.”

“Oh my! That’s very serious, is he alright?” Yoshiki looked worried as he led his guests into his den, settling onto a massive plush couch as an admirably discrete butler served drinks.

“He’s doing well enough now, but he’ll be undergoing physical therapy for a while yet.” Kaoru scowled as he settled into a seat across from the older man. “We were able to catch his assailant, but we still haven’t been able to track down who hired him in the first place. Since then, we’ve caught three more assassination attempts; all of the mercenaries Russian, and all telling the same story of a man in a mask calling himself the Falcon, calling for the death of any one of my lieutenants.”

“Is that so… Well, you know I’m always happy to help where I can, Kaoru. But something like this will take at least a few days, and you typically call me with such jobs rather than visiting personally. Do you distrust someone in your home?” Yoshiki wondered. If so, it was going to be a much more delicate job to try to smoke out the rat.

“Hmm? Oh no, not at all. It’s a convenient excuse for a vacation, is all.” Kaoru’s scowl faded into a faint smirk as he nodded to Kyo. The blonde had found his way to the large window overlooking the gardens and was gazing out over the grounds excitedly as a gust of wind blew sakura petals into the sky. “Plus, my pet was missing his homeland, and he can be rather difficult to say ‘no’ to.”

~*~

Days passed, and Kyo wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t dreaming it all. Since October, he’d been in something of an emotional freefall, caught occasionally in viciously spiraling whirlwinds and thrown about so much that he couldn’t tell if he was still falling, or had crashed and broken apart long ago. But he’d been so completely, unequivocally _happy_ since coming back to Kyoto that he was almost certain he was flying, and nothing could put a damper on his spirits. And somewhere along the way, he found his regard for Kaoru shifting from acknowledgement of a symbiotic bond, into a vague sort of adoration and gratitude.

On vacation – away from work and Kaoru's three "brothers" – he had his master’s undivided attention, and while the basic dynamic of inequality defining their relationship never changed, part of him was blossoming under the older man’s affections. He found himself speaking to Kaoru more often, more openly than he had before; allowing himself to expose a little more of _‘Kyo’_ rather than always hiding behind the encompassing pretense of _‘Kaoru’s pet_.’ He worried less and less about his boundaries, more secure in his place at his master's side, and a lot of the strain and tension he’d been carrying around for the past six months started to fade away, minute shades at a time. The corner of his mind railing for freedom had dwindled down to an almost-inaudible whisper anymore; something easily ignored when its cries hurt too much to tolerate, when the delusion was so much sweeter than any life he'd ever known.

And Kaoru was more than content to spoil his little pet rotten, obliging the younger man’s every whim whenever he built up the nerve to voice one simply because he enjoyed seeing him happy. They spent a lot of their time in Gion, watching the geiko dancing in their annual Miyako Odori, and visiting kimono weavers. Kyo got his white miso, as well as kyo kaiseki meals, obanzai and countless other local specialties on which Kaoru spared no expense to obtain only the highest quality. They went to Minami-za for a kabuki performance, watched cherry blossoms shed their flowers and fed koi from the Togetsu-kyo Bridge, and shopped endlessly for souvenirs for Shinya, Die, and Toshiya.

Kaoru had also indulged himself in a bit of shibari, and Kyo was in such a jubilant mood, he couldn’t even think of denying the man a little bit of exhibitionism. He’d found himself suspended a few meters off the ground, bound in a massive web stretched between two ancient maple trees on Yoshiki’s property, his modesty maintained only by a black cloth wrapped around his hips. The height and exposure would normally be terrifying for Kyo, but he’d come to find a strange sort of peace within himself during such sessions; similar to the feeling he got during heavy thunderstorms. Where storms freed and opened up his mind, the rope play seemed to bare his emotional core to the elements, and it was an exhilarating experience so long as his master was nearby to keep him anchored and protected. The fact that Kaoru so dearly loved to see him bound that way was no small motivation, either.

 “Master?”

Kaoru, hands tucked comfortably in the pockets of his casual black slacks, glanced from behind his sunglasses to where Kyo was walking beside him. Today, they were running a circuit of various shrines; Kaoru watching with amused curiosity as Kyo left lovingly-prepared offerings at each before praying to the enshrined deities. The blonde looked wholly and absolutely content with life, balanced on the low wooden barrier along the edge of the sidewalk, his bag of offerings hanging from one wrist. From his other wrist, the dangling tail end of a new string of ornate metal spheres and loops swung jauntily with his every movement. The spring sun was absorbed by the muted grey silk of his summer yukata – a souvenir from their visit to the Gion weavers – but was catching and dancing on the scales of the golden dragon dyed across the back.

“Yes, pet?”

“You and Mr. Hayashi are… _friends_ , aren’t you?”

“Oh yes. He’s a good friend of mine from college, and a very valuable ally at times. He’s not directly affiliated with any particular organization, but he has more contacts and access to delicate information than anyone else in the country.”

“Why are you two so rude to one another?”

Kaoru chuckled a bit. “Yoshiki is from a _very_ wealthy, important family, while I… am not. So he calls me filthy guttertrash and I call him a worthless snob, and things between us remain light-hearted. If we take each other too seriously, we both tend to be somewhat controlling, and we just end up bickering over ever last petty detail.”

One side of Kyo’s mouth hitched up in a half grin, his own thoughts dripping with sarcasm.

_‘My master? A control freak?_ **_Never!_ ** _’_

Kaoru saw the look and nudged the younger man with one elbow; not enough to knock him off the wall, but enough to stagger his balance a bit. “Don’t be a punk.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“You thought it plenty loud.”

Kyo wrinkled his nose and shrugged sheepishly, then lifted his attention a bit from the area directly in front of his feet, where he tended to focus when he was walking. Spotting something interesting further along the wall, he picked up his pace to an eager trot, putting a couple of meters between himself and his master before crouching over the curiosity. At Kaoru’s other side, Epyon perked at the sudden movement, ready to give chase if issued the command, but the man held her leash just as calmly as before, so she quickly settled back down.

When they caught up with the blonde, they found him mulling over a furry little insect crawling over his fingers and periodically stretching up the front half of its body to swing about in the air, searching with near-useless eyes for something that looked more like food. Kyo was frowning thoughtfully, as if the little creature had reminded him of something important.

“Ne… Master?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think all caterpillars _want_ to become butterflies?”

Kaoru cocked his head a bit, contemplatively. “I don’t presume to know what caterpillars want out of life, but I can’t imagine why one wouldn’t. Don’t all ground-bound creatures envy those born to flight?”

“Maybe, but… does flight make butterflies _better_ _?_ I mean… the butterfly is almost a parasite, isn’t it? They’re not the same animal at all; the caterpillar basically dies in order for the butterfly to live. Maybe some of them would rather stay furry little worms than risk life being blown around in the wind on tissue-paper wings.”

Kaoru thought on that, taking the insect from his pet with a careful hand and watching it climb over his palm. “…I think that regardless of what it might want, or what it stands to lose in the process, the caterpillar is destined to become a butterfly. What you want is rarely – if ever – what you need, after all, and _fate_ is never concerned with the former. I think it’s a universal truth for all creatures that we must become just who we are meant to be, regardless of our own wishes on the matter.”

Kyo watched his master place the caterpillar on a shaded leaf in a nearby bush, fidgeting with the beads on his wrist. He suspected, on more than one occasion, that while Kaoru didn’t necessarily _regret_ the way his life had gone, it wasn’t anything like what the man had wished for himself. What he’d learned of his master’s past from Toshiya certainly suggested as much, and he knew from his own observations and subtle hints in previous conversations that Kaoru hoped one day to start a family – to get married and have children and provide for his offspring all that he had grown up without. He also knew that Kaoru viewed that as a pipe dream; an idle fantasy that would probably never be realized simply because of who and what he was.

Kyo wondered if the Kaoru of the past had fought the silk cocoon that instigated his metamorphosis into the spider the way the caterpillar in his dream had. If the solemn look on the older man’s face was any indication, he had; right to the bitter end.

“Kaoru?”

“Hm?”

“Do you ever pray?”

Kaoru gave him an odd look, at once amused and surprised. “No. Why would I? You said yourself, I’m practically a god.”

“You should try it,” Kyo asserted, slipping his hand into the older man’s and tugging him back into movement towards their destination. “Come on, you can pray to Inari with me. We’ll give fried tofu to the kitsune standing watch out front, and they’ll help make sure She hears us.”

“You really believe in that kind of thing?”

“Well… I _believe_ in what I can see and touch and experience for myself… but that doesn’t mean I can’t _hope_ for more, right?”

“I suppose. I’m not sure I would know what to pray for.”

“Guidance. Strength. For tomorrow to be better than today. Whatever you feel you need, and even if you’re not sure, Inari will know. Usually She looks after things involving prosperity and the harvest and such. Hey, you know, She turned into a spider once!”

“Is that so?”

“Mmhmm, to punish a man named Raiko for being a selfish prick.” Kyo frowned a little then, looking over at his master. “Don’t be… you know… _bossy_ with Her or the kitsune, though, okay? She won’t like it. And don’t tell Her I called you a god, I don’t want Her to be mad at me.”

Kaoru smiled indulgently. “I’ll be on my best behavior.”

Epyon let out a faint grumble as they walked; ears perked a bit, tail held stiffly, ready to defend her master. She was on the alert, sensing some undefined menace nearby, but not distressed enough to call attention to herself until she could spot whatever it was. A steady gaze watched the pair pass, the watcher blending easily into the surroundings with nondescript clothing and a casual air about him. Once they were out of earshot, he pulled out a cell phone and dialed a familiar number. Two rings, and an aristocratic, yet gruff voice greeted him.

“Hello?”

“It’s me. I think I may have found an answer to our issue with the spider.”

“In Kyoto? What might that be?”

“A softer target.”

~*~

“You’re certain you can’t stay a bit longer? Honestly, I was getting used to the smell of sewage coming from my guest room, and I’m sure your little pet was enjoying the time spent in nicer surroundings than that hovel you live in.” Yoshiki was sulking a bit as his servants loaded suitcases into the trunk of the limousine.

Kaoru chuckled and bowed politely. “My apologies, friend, but I do have to be getting back to my business. Besides, any longer here and I’ll run the risk of your triviality and vanity rubbing off on me, and we all know the world doesn’t need another worthless dandy prancing about.”

Kyo couldn’t hide a slight grin as the men exchanged another hearty, pointedly masculine embrace – a decidedly Western custom both seemed particularly fond of. It was funny because Kaoru’s house and property were both larger than Yoshiki’s, and all three of them knew it. And Yoshiki was a bit vain, to be sure, but certainly nowhere _near_ as narcissistic as Kaoru, and they all knew that too. Watching the two men interact over the past week had been as entertaining as it was fascinating; a constant exchange of outrageous insults masking their underlying respect and fondness for one another.

Yoshiki tilted his head a bit, slightly more serious. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t be of any more help. Too many people are too restless right now… something is happening, and whoever’s in charge of it is being uncommonly covert about the whole thing.”

Kaoru nodded sagely. “You’ve done more than any of us could. Shinya and I will look over what you’ve found and see if we can’t make sense of any of it.”

“Of this much I can be sure; more than one family is involved, and this isn’t a simple grudge. I suspect the assassination attempts on your three advisors are an effort to blow sand into your eyes, not the ultimate goal. _Watch your back_ , Kaoru.”

Kaoru snorted a bit. “Don’t I always?”

Yoshiki frowned, worried. “You’re too cocky. You’re awfully young to be playing with the stakes you are, and I know that you’re more competent than most, but you’re not invincible, and neither is your family.”

Kaoru’s expression darkened, and Kyo knew he was thinking about Toshiya; how suddenly catastrophe had struck them, how close they’d come to losing him, how helpless they’d all been to protect him. “That much has become abundantly clear to me of late. I will not be cowed by this cloak-and-dagger bullshit, but I will be careful, Yoshiki.”

“Excellent. And give my regards to Toshiya and Die for me, won’t you?”

“Of course. Not Shinya?”

Yoshiki gave a sly grin and winked. “My regards for that boy would be improper to pass along second-hand.”

Kaoru rolled his eyes. “I’ve told you before; you’re barking up an entirely unoccupied tree. He’s never shown interest in _anyone_ , let alone your old, poncey ass.”

“A man can dream.” Yoshiki turned to Kyo. “And you.”

Kyo just blinked up at the older man. They hadn’t spoken much, but what words they had exchanged had been pleasant enough, and he was reasonably comfortable around him after a week in his house. Yoshiki put his hands on the blonde’s shoulders and regarded him intently.

“You take care of this ego-maniacal street punk for me, alright? You’re the strangest courtesan I’ve ever met, but you seem to be doing him some good. Don’t let him run himself into an early grave.”

Kyo bobbed his head. “Yes, Mr. Hayashi.”

But as Kyo and Kaoru settled into the limo, Epyon curling up on the floor at their feet, he couldn’t help but wonder over the parting instruction.

_‘How much longer will He need me, anyways?’_

_‘It’s been… 188 days… just over six months.’_

_‘I feel like any minute now, He’s going decide He’s bored with me.’_

_‘Isn’t that what I want?’_

_‘I’ll be free but… where will I go?’_

_‘I’m not sure I know how_ **_not_ ** _to be His anymore…’_

A nudge against his side brought his attention back to Kaoru momentarily. He accepted a motion sickness pill from his master with a small, grateful smile. Curling up against the older man’s side, he stared out the window with unseeing eyes, watching the last cherry blossom petals of the season rain sedately around them on a gentle breeze.

_‘I can’t help but feel like something bad is about to happen…’_


	33. Chapter 33

“Die… is a really terrible dancer,” Shinya observed with a smile.

“He’s not _that_ bad,” Kyo protested, though it was lacking in both conviction and evidential support. “It’s just… it’s just because he’s dancing with Totchi. This is more Totchi’s thing; he makes everybody look bad.”

A few meters away, within an ever-shifting crowd of moving bodies, Toshiya and Die moved together. Their tall, lithe bodies writhed and twisted against one another to the beat of heavy electronic music, illuminated by strobes and flashing patterns of rainbow lights. They gained attention from throughout the room for their inherent beauty and the way they seemed to fit against one another almost flawlessly, but to those who watched for longer than the passing flare of a strobe light, it quickly became obvious that one of them was just this side of hopeless on a dance floor. Neither of them seemed to particularly mind Die’s lack of grace or skill in this regard though. And to be honest, Toshiya wasn’t really at the top of his game either; still somewhat stiff from his impalement a couple months back.

Really, both men just seemed to be reveling in eachother’s company, clearly too absorbed in one another to pay even the slightest attention to anyone else.

“I seem to remember you and Toshiya dancing together without any such difficulties,” Kaoru put in before taking a deep drink of his rum and coke, swallowing with a content sigh. “But Die’s also pretty drunk.”

“Exactly! And I danced for a living for years; it’s not a fair comparison,” Kyo insisted. “Besides, look how much fun they’re having. They’re happy, who cares if Die dances like-… oh, Jesus… like a… goddamn marionette on tangled strings… what is he _doing?_ _”_

Shinya chuckled and shook his head, taking a delicate sip from his martini. Kaoru just rolled his eyes, smirking at his best friend’s antics and waving an arm at the waitress to try to order another drink. Kyo continued to watch the spectacle, empathy for Die’s ungainliness warring with thrill for his and Toshiya’s obvious happiness and the disjointed fascination that one experiences when witnessing a train wreck. He had seen Die spar once before; hand to hand free-style martial arts with some of the other security personnel, and then, the redhead had been the epitome of style, grace, and self-control. It boggled Kyo’s mind that that same man would be so hopeless at dancing.

“I’m glad to see Toshiya moving around so well again,” Shinya confessed. “I hated seeing him hobbling around like that… flinching every time he moved wrong…”

“Mm… Totchi’s always been stronger than he lets on,” Kaoru said fondly.

“He’s just happy the doctor is letting him drink again.” Kyo recognized the mild sentimentality in the older man’s voice as a herald of intoxication reaching excessive levels and turned away from the show. “…Ne, Master? I don’t think the waitress is coming… maybe I should get your drink for you?” _‘And some_ ** _water…_** _’_ “I need to use the restroom anyways.”

Kaoru scowled at the waitress and looked down at his pet for a moment, contemplating. “…Alright. You know to get-”

“Over-proof rum and coke,” Kyo finished for him, sliding out of the booth. “Yes, Master, I know. Shinya, do you need anything?”

Shinya smiled. “No, thank you.”

Kaoru counted out a small wad of bills to hand to the blonde. “Here. Toshiya’s probably going to want another panty dropper when he gets back as well. Get yourself whatever you want.”

Kyo nodded and tucked the money safely into his pocket as he hurried off to the bathroom. Kaoru watched him go for a while, enjoying the gentle sway of the younger man’s ass in the tight leather pants he’d been poured into for the evening – not to mention the subtle lines of the ropes underneath – then turned his attention back to Toshiya and Die. He found them halfway between where they had been and the table, slowly making their way back. It was still a bit peculiar to see them so obviously _together_ , so clearly and comfortably smitten with one another, but they were both happier than he could remember either of them ever being, so he couldn’t really be anything other than happy for them.

“No escort?” Shinya wondered mildly.

 “For Kyo?” Kaoru shook his head, smirking faintly. “No, not today. I had him on the ropes last night so he’ll be glued to my side for the next day or so.”

“Ah, that’s what it is… I was wondering what got him so clingy. Actually, he’s been pretty sweet on you since Kyoto, now that I think about it.”

“He’s surprisingly easy to please.”

“Ugh!” Die grunted dramatically, flopping into the booth with an embarrassed grimace. “Dancing is _hard._ And I suck at it.”

Shinya’s lips quirked into a smile, but he said nothing.

Kaoru grinned wickedly. “You think? We hadn’t noticed…”

Toshiya shot his boss a dirty look, patting Die’s knee. “You do fine, sugar! There’s no one else I’d rather be dancing with.”

“Bullshit,” the redhead retorted immediately, but he couldn’t hold back the faintest blush and smile. “And go to hell, Niikura, you can’t do any better than I can.”

“That would be why I don’t try,” Kaoru affirmed sweetly.

Clearing his throat and taking a deep drink of his beer, Die looked around a bit, changing the subject. “Where’s the wee one?”

“Bathroom, and drinks. Fucking waitress wouldn’t-”

_~BAM~_

All four men jumped at the sudden sound, instantly on the alert. It wasn’t overloud, just audible over the rhythmic pulse of the club’s music, but it was distinct and familiar enough to catch their attention nonetheless.

_~BAMBAM~_

“Gunfire,” Die hissed, one hand already reaching for the pistol hidden at the small of his back, grasping but not drawing it.

He scanned each of his companions quickly for injuries and, finding none, expanded his search out to the rest of the club. The sound had been from within the building, but not anywhere close to them. For weeks following Kaoru’s return from Kyoto, there had been no further attempts on their lives, and they had almost allowed themselves to believe that whoever was behind the attacks had given up. Still, they hadn’t dropped their guard, so it was something of a surprise that none of them had spotted anyone drawing a weapon on them.

“Where?” Kaoru demanded.

Shinya pointed to where people were looking with mild interest and confusion. “There, by the bar.”

“The bathrooms!” Toshiya corrected, eyes wide. “Kyo-”

Kaoru was out of the booth before Toshiya could even finish what he was saying, Die hot on his heels. Toshiya and Shinya exchanged a look – knowing that such situations weren’t really their areas of expertise, but hating the idea of letting their brothers rush off into danger alone – before following suit. It was difficult; the rest of the club didn’t really recognize the sounds as anything other than curious interruptions to their music, and continued to stand around in a crowded crush. By the time they made it through the mob, Kaoru and Die were standing in the bathroom doorway, staring into the tiny room with confusion and, in Kaoru’s case, fury.

On the wall by the sink, fresh blood was splattered around a small hole in the plaster, about a meter and a half off the ground. The crimson stain spread from there, dripping its way across the floor to a narrow window on the far wall and smearing across the sill in grasping, wild handprints. Two more holes were punched in the plaster just under the frame. Kaoru crossed the room and snatched up a string of bloody beads from where they had snagged on the window’s latch. Kyo’s bracelet.

“Oh no,” Toshiya breathed, one hand over his mouth.

Shinya pulled out his phone to call their driver. They were going to need to be gone before the police showed up.

Die leaned out the window, searching the darkened streets outside anxiously, strain evident around his eyes. “Fuck… They’re gone, Kao.”

Kaoru closed his fist around the bracelet, eyes near-black with wrath.

~*~

Kyo ran blindly, as fast as his legs could possibly carry him. He had no idea where he was or where he was going, he didn’t know why he was being attacked, or who was attacking him, and he didn’t know what he was going to do to escape. All he knew through the dizzying blast of panic and pain swirling incoherently in his mind was that he’d just been _shot_ , and that the man who had done it was hot on his heels. His right hand was clamped over his left arm as strove to stem the flow of blood. He had only some indeterminate instinct to thank for the urge to turn just before the shot had been fired, allowing the bullet to pass through his dragon’s chest rather than his own. Now, all he could do was duck around every corner he passed in the hopes that the man wouldn’t be able to line up a proper shot into his back.

_‘Help!’_

_‘I need help!’_

_‘SOMEBODY HELP ME?!’_

He was panting too hard to scream physically, but mentally he was a shrieking mess of hysterics. He heard the man chasing him shout something incomprehensible – anger evident in his voice – and forced himself to move faster, to run harder. Passing between buildings, jumping a low fence, squeezing past a dumpster; he changed direction as often as he could, keeping as many obstacles as possible between himself and his pursuer and desperately seeking another human being who might be able to help him. The man seemed to come at him from bizarre angles, keeping him from going down certain paths and herding him deeper into this unknown district. Wherever he was, it was devoid of life this time of night.

_‘No, no, NO!’_

_‘I don’t want to die!’_

_‘_ **_I don’t want to die!_ ** _’_

Finally, ducking into a narrow alleyway, he ran into both a dead end and a miracle. There was a brick wall at the end of the passage, trapping him in the narrow space, but there were also three men in front of that wall, standing around something on the ground. Kyo stumbled to a halt, gasping for breath, and they all looked up as the man with the gun came to a stop at the mouth of the alley.

_‘Thank the gods!’_

“He-… help… ple-…” Kyo wheezed desperately, “Pol-… call the po-…”

“What the hell is this?” one of the men in the alley demanded. Under the gibbering wail of panic in his mind, Kyo thought he knew the voice. “You were supposed to _kill_ the whore, not chase him halfway across the damn city!”

“Wh-… what?” Kyo breathed.

“What the fuck do you want me to do, Soejima? He ran!” The gunman panted in a heavy Eastern-European accent, "I got him here, at least!"

_‘…So-… Soe-…’_

Kyo’s heart froze, eyes slowly widening in recognition.

_‘No… it **can’t** be him…’_

_‘There’s no way it’s him!’_

_‘Oh gods!’_

“I don’t know why I bother hiring out for these jobs. All I get is hopelessly incompetent fools; honestly, how hard is it to kill _one_ man? With Niikura’s lackeys it makes some sense; they’re professionals. But this one?” Takashi Soejima stepped away from the mound of flesh and cloth on the alley floor – a body, Kyo realized, and a massive one at that – and pulled out a gun, “Congratulations, you have failed to take out a single, untrained prostitute, and in the process proven yourself to be a complete waste of my time and money. Our business is concluded.”

“Wait-” the man who’d shot Kyo started, holding his hands up defensively.

Kyo stared, horrified, as Takashi shot the gunman three times in the chest, the dull _~thump-thump-thump~_ of his silenced pistol echoing softly off the brick walls around them. Kyo turned to flee again, ignoring his body’s screaming protests, but made it only a few steps before another _~thump~_ sounded and blinding pain exploded in his right leg, starting in his knee and spreading rapidly throughout his entire body. It was a deeper, more pervasive agony than anything he’d ever experienced and his mouth fell open in a scream too strained to make any sound. He hit the cement hard, shock sending spasms through his body even while scrambling and erratically trying to drag himself away on his remaining arm and leg. He had to get away, had to get back to his master’s protection! Footsteps clicked softly on the ground behind him, drawing closer in spite of his frantic efforts.

“But I suppose I don’t mind doing a bit of dirty work myself, since we’ve got you out of your master’s sight.”

 “No… no, no, no, gods, please no!”

Takashi caught up to him easily, pushing him onto his back with one foot and stepping on his chest to hold him there. His mind shut down, going into pure hysterical void as he stared in abject terror down the barrel of a gun for the third time in his life, this time with all-too intimate knowledge of what being shot actually felt like. Squeezing his eyes shut and turning his face away in the last vestige of escape he could make, Kyo braced himself for death, and in the process, missed the flicker of recognition passing through the man’s remaining eye.

“I don’t fucking believe it…” Takashi muttered, slowly lowering his gun and moving into a crouch next to the smaller man.

Kyo flinched and tried to pull away as a hand that smelled horribly of gunpowder grabbed his chin and jerked his face up roughly. His eyes came open again, but he had trouble focusing through the pain and exhaustion rapidly taking over him. He’d been shot – _twice_ now – run nearly three kilometers at a dead sprint, and seen a man murdered right in front of him; he was so far past his limits anymore it was a wonder he was still conscious at all.

“Don’t, please don’t… please…” he whimpered shakily.

“…No way. He actually kept _you_ this long?” Takashi seemed absolutely stunned. He hesitated a bit, thinking, then stood and addressed the other two men remaining in the alley. “Load him up with the Russian.”

One of the men looked unsure. “Eh, Boss… will Mr. Tanaka be okay with that?”

Takashi sneered. “He’s waited this long, another week or so won’t hurt him. All we agreed on was killing Niikura’s pet; no one ever said I couldn’t play with him first. Besides, Shige is not my keeper. Load him into the damn van _._ ”

The man shrugged and, with the help of his companion, loaded the giant body they had been standing over into a van parked near the mouth of the alley. “The Russian” outweighed both of them – possibly combined – and it took a lot of grunting and swearing before they had him secured. Kyo struggled weakly as one of them came back to drag him into the vehicle as well, tossing him carelessly on top of the still figure of the massive man. Just before the door slammed shut, Kyo saw the body of the man that had chased him from the club being hauled into a nearby dumpster.

Takashi and one of the other men slid into the front of the van, the other settling on a box in the back, and the vehicle jerked roughly into motion. As Kyo’s vision began to grey out around the edges, he closed his eyes and shot off a prayer before oblivion could claim him.

_‘Master… please…’_

_‘Help me…’_

_~*~_

**[Who am I now? Not who I used to be, that much is certain. Tooru Nishimura – student, son of Ruri and Shirou Nishimura, older brother of Ayame Nishimura – died a long time ago, I’ve known that much for years. But I suspect that Kyo Nishimura has died as well. I don’t know when, for certain… I think it has been a gradual death; a poisoning. But he is gone, and I am all that’s left here. So who am I? Well… that question was answered for me the moment His fangs sank into my soul, wasn’t it?**

**I am** _**His**_ **. His property. Whatever He wants me to be, whenever He wants me to be it, to do with whatever He may please.** _**His** _ **prize,** _**His** _ **consort,** _**His** _ **courtesan,** _**His** _ **pet,** _**His** _ **plaything. My life is defined solely by what I am to Him. All of these things, He told me in the very beginning, and they have become my value; the inescapable truth of my existence.**

 **To a certain extent, though, I feel that He is mine as well. He is** _ **my**_ **master,** _ **my**_ **keeper,** _ **my**_ **spider,** _ **my**_ **god,** _ **my**_ **devil. What He is to me, He is to no one else. What I can do for Him, only** **I can do, and there’s a strange sort of pride to knowing that a man such as Him can need someone like me and no one else. I find that I am almost… addicted to this fate I have perceived for myself – the destiny He’s spun for me. I don’t love Kaoru, but nor do I hate Him. I do adore Him, and at times, I remember to abhor Him, but even that comes less and less frequently. In that regard, I suppose He is like life itself.**

**I’m not blind. I can see the madness that lies in the pages preceding this one for what it is. I know that this journal has been a eulogy for who I once was, and I know that though Kisaki put that person into this spider’s web, in the end, it was Kaoru who killed him. But I wonder… can the butterfly mourn the caterpillar’s death once the metamorphosis is complete? Can I resent the change He’s instigated in me, with my wings spreading into flight for the first time?**

**Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’m broken. But somehow I know that this travesty of love between us… this poison in my veins, in my soul… this is my destiny, isn’t it? Late at night, when we’re sleeping together… I know that there is something pure in that bed, underneath all the corruption. And I mourn for my master in those moments, because I know that He’s been tarnished for so long that He doesn’t believe there’s anything good left in Himself. I think that Kaoru is my purpose, and maybe… even if He isn’t** _**my** _ **salvation… maybe I am, in some small way, part of His** _**.** _ **]**

Kaoru stared blankly at the last page in the familiar, slightly-battered black notebook, the entry dated just a couple days ago. He’d almost forgotten he needed to buy his pet a new one. After tonight, it seemed it may no longer be necessary. It was not the first time he’d read his pet’s journal; maybe once a month or so, curiosity would overtake him and he would flip through the book at his leisure. Kyo knew, of course – Kaoru had made absolutely no effort to hide his actions – and had voiced no protests. They both knew that he could keep no secrets from his master.

And certainly, what had been scribbled in those pages could very easily be called madness; macabre poems and doodles, images of dreams and nightmares, bouncing wildly between desolation and ecstasy in a roller coaster of pure emotional outlet. Kaoru found the mess to be a valuable insight into his pet’s labyrinth mind. Once, months back, he had read through a description of a nightmare the blonde had had where Kyo dreamt he’d been sold into a brothel, Kaoru’s original threats of the consequences of his misbehavior echoing in his mind. Apparently, he had woken with his hands clamped over his mouth to muffle a scream as his dream-self was held down and raped, scant handfuls of coins the price for his defilement. For days following, he’d been unusually skittish, hiding in his room more often than not, speaking hardly more than a couple words at a time.

Upon reading that entry, Kaoru had taken Kyo back into his shibari room and tied him more intricately than he ever had before, or since, and had stayed with him there for hours. No words were spoken beyond the usual stories and murmured assurances, but an understanding was formed from the act. Kaoru may not keep Kyo forever – may not have any feelings stronger than fondness for him – but fondness was more than most people got, and Kaoru would not suffer anyone else to harm his precious pet, even once he was done with him. After being let down from the web, Kyo had been as spun sugar; beautiful, delicate, and impossibly sweet as he clung to his master for a solid week. He had suffered no such nightmares since.

Now, reading this final entry, Kaoru found himself seething. He knew he shouldn’t be so riled up over the loss of a simple companion, but he didn’t give a damn about propriety at this point – he was _pissed_. Kyo had been his special project; tarnished enough to be a gloriously sexual creature, while pure enough to be shaped to Kaoru’s personal wants and needs. Fragile enough to be bent and molded to his will, but strong enough to remain ultimately unbroken through the process; intelligent and honest and improbably compassionate in ways that no courtesan had ever been, lending him a unique aptitude for tending to even his master’s unvoiced needs. An unexpected treasure pulled from a refuse heap, and Kaoru had coveted his prize fiercely. Kyo was _his_ pet, goddamn it! Everything strange and beautiful and complicated and brilliant within the blonde belonged to him, and someone had stolen the man away, possibly even killed him.

Kaoru had no idea why anyone would pay for a hit on his companion. Strictly speaking, as a courtesan, Kyo should have been considered a non-combatant; he had no real significance to the organization as a whole as far as anyone else was concerned. Which meant that the assault on him was an assault on Kaoru himself, not on the family. Someone had intentionally damaged his personal property – _stolen_ it – and it was a deliberate slap in the face, too brazen to be ignored or forgiven. Kaoru had been robbed, and as he finally brought himself to retire for the evening as dawn’s light began to grey the sky, he swore that whoever was responsible would regret this day with their final breath.

 

 


	34. Chapter 34

It was a slow, faltering rise towards consciousness. The black began to fade gradually, almost imperceptibly at first, until it became a static-ridden grey. The air was stale, smelling of thick dust and something metallic; something like copper. Something like blood. Flesh registered a cold, hard surface underneath before a pervasive, throbbing pain started to creep in, building steadily towards agony. A faint ringing in the ears flared once, then receded into silence, allowing in the disjointed sounds of two voices arguing.

At length, the first voice resolved itself into comprehensible words. “-re you thinking, bringing that trash here? You’re going to ruin everything we’ve worked for, everything we’ve managed to set into motion, all for the sake of indulging your perversions!”

Another voice – this one vaguely familiar, and inspiring an instinctual shiver of fear – followed shortly. “Relax, Shige, nothing will be ruined. I’m just going to play with him until he breaks, then we can kill him and deliver him to Niikura, and we’ll be right back on track. It won’t take more than a couple of days.”

“I’ve waited long enough!”

“It’s hardly my fault that your assassins can’t manage a single competent hit.”

“Is it not enough that you get Niikura himself when all this is through? What is it about this one goddamn whore that you would put everything at risk?”

“That’s what I want to find out.” The second voice was excited now. “This one is special to the bastard, and I want to know why. Come on, you’ve trusted me this long. Just give me a couple more days to have my fun.”

“…” An exasperated sigh. “How long?”

“A week, at the very most.”

“And the _moment_ he’s broken…?”

“I’ll slit his throat myself and have him delivered to Niikura.”

“…Hn. Do as you will, Takashi, but if you botch this-”

“We’re both sunk. Yes, I’m well aware the consequences. Just remember; you chose me because I know him better than anyone else, and no one else can hold him off long enough for you to make your move. You need me just as much as I need you.”

“Right…”

“I’m a busy man. Was there something else you wanted, or can I get back to my work?”

“…By all means.”

There was a long pause, wherein the click of expensive shoes against concrete receded into the distance. The pain was still ramping itself higher and higher, centered on his left arm and right leg and spreading like electric fire to flood his entire system. He shifted laboriously, hoping to alleviate the ache, but it only incited another flare, and the grey in his mind began to darken again.

“You, there,” the first voice came again.

“Yes, Mr. Tanaka?” A new voice; entirely unfamiliar.

“When he comes back for this one, I want you to take a photograph and send it to Niikura. Make sure you’re not seen.”

“…Sir?”

“It’s alright. The plan was always for Soejima to pluck at the spider’s web and hold his attention while I work at snapping the threads holding it together. I’m just moving things along a little faster.”

“As you will, sir.”

“Good man.”

It was the last thing Kyo heard before he sank back into blissful, pain-free oblivion. He had no way of knowing how much time passed while he was mentally shut down; it could have been a handful of moments, or several hours. By the time he’d surfaced, his system had flooded itself with enough endorphins that he could stand to remain awake, though just barely. His eyes opened this time, dazedly taking in the tiny concrete room whose floor he was sprawled across. Four solid walls, tiny barred windows on either side, a heavy door to the front, a toilet with a sink built into the top. Dried blood streaking across the floor, from the doorway to where he currently lay.

_‘…fuck.’_

“Отче наш, сущий на небесах!”

Kyo took a deep breath and took careful stock of his body. Head; aching, but apparently unharmed.

“Да святится имя Твоё…”

Right arm; intact. Left arm;-

“ _Nh!_ ”

-severely damaged, but still functional. The bullet hadn’t hit bone, then – thank the gods for small mercies.

“Да придёт Царство Твоё…”

Torso; intact. Left leg; fatigued, but intact. Right leg;-

_“ANH!”_

-useless, and the attempt to move it very nearly knocked him out again.

“Да будет воля Твоя, И на земле, как на небе…”

Rolling over slowly, with great care and a litany of hissed curses, Kyo sat up and looked down at the unresponsive, agonized limb. The leg of his pants had been cut away, and the wound had been wrapped to keep him from bleeding out, but it was otherwise left untreated. There was dirt and so much blood caked, thick and black, all over his skin and clothing. The hole through his arm had been similarly bound.

“Хлеб на насущный, Дай нам на сей день…”

This was bad. He was severely crippled, in the custody of Takashi Soejima, a man who deeply hated his master, and was evidently planning some unimaginable cruelty for Kyo himself; and Shige Tanaka, who Kaoru had once counted among his more tenuous allies as not necessarily trustworthy, but not suspect either. Kaoru didn’t know where he was and even if he did, hadn’t Shinya already told him that they couldn’t save him if Soejima stole him? That he wasn’t worth starting a war over? No one would be coming for him… he would not be saved from this place.

_‘I… I’m going to die here… aren’t I?’_

_‘I’m going to be tortured… I’m going to break… and I’m going to die…’_

_‘I’ll have been nothing more than a pawn…’_

Closing his eyes against the aching sting of tears, Kyo opened his mouth and spoke along with the gravelly voice that had been murmuring nearby.

“И п-прости нам до-долги наши, к-как и мы прощаем… д-должникам нашим…”

Gods, but his Russian was terrible. Better than his English, by a long shot, but still… He hoped his neighbor forgave his clumsy intrusion. Faith – _any_ faith – was something he grasped onto desperately; the only thing that could stave off the panic already building in his chest. The voice paused for a moment, and Kyo heard the faintest rattle of heavy chains. He felt the weight of curious ears, and continued the prayer.

“И н-не введи нас в и-искушение, Но из-избавь нас… от л-лукавого.”

Another shuffle, and as Kyo held his breath, the deep voice started up again, much closer this time. “Ибо Твоё есть Царство, И сила и слава во веки.”

Kyo released the breath he’d been holding, eyes sliding shut in relief. "Аминь."

"Аминь… Your Russian is _terrible_.”

Forcing a watery smile at the echo of his own thoughts, Kyo cast about for the source of the heavily accented voice now, thankfully, speaking his own language. He found a pair of electric-blue eyes staring at him through the tiny window on one of his side walls. He couldn’t see much, but his neighbor was apparently fairly tall, with heavy cheekbones, and either had very short hair or was bald. He had the vaguest memories of Takashi’s words back in the alleyway, and guessed that this was the man that he’d been standing over when Kyo had arrived. The body that Kyo’s had been tossed on top of when he was loaded so callously into the van; that he was now desperately relieved to learn had not been dead at the time.

“Sorry,” Kyo murmured softly, wiping the tears off his cheeks with a rough swipe.

“Do not be. Is always nicer to pray with another than to pray alone, yes?”

Kyo smiled a little and nodded. “It is. …My name is Kyo… what’s yours?”

His neighbor grinned widely, baring slightly jagged-looking teeth. “Ah-ah-ah! Is nice try, little Сорoка! I will not give my name to man about to die. You call me Медведъ. This way, when you go to God, you will not be confused and tell Him I am responsible for your death with my real name, and He will not think I am killing innocents.”

“Me… Medved?” Not an easy name to pronounce, but Kyo did the best he could. “It means ‘bear,’ right?” Something powerful, but somewhat lacking in elegance and diplomacy. Fair enough. And Medved had called him Soroka; …magpie?

Medved chuckled and disappeared from view. If the clinking of chains and shuffling of cloth was any indication, he was settling in to sit under their shared window. “Very good! Your pronunciation is shit, but is okay; I cannot expect miracles too big from one so small. Is always nice to hear my mother tongue at all in this country.”

Kyo laughed weakly. “I’ll take that as a compliment, I guess...” He hitched up his unbroken leg and hugged it to his chest, trying to keep warm. “So… what are you in for?”

Medved snorted derisively. “I refused job from Soejima. He is not pleased, so he hunts me down and shoots me with… how do you call them… _sleeping darts_.” There was a snarl, and the sound of spitting as the voice continued in a disgusted tone, “Молодeц прoтив овeц, а прoтив молодцa – и сам овцa!”

Kyo puzzled over the exclamation before sorting it out as a proverb; something like ‘Brave while fighting against sheep, but against brave men, a sheep himself.’ It seemed like a reasonable appraisal of Soejima. “What kind of job?”

“To kill innocent man. I happily kill man who _deserves_ death, of course. I know that killing is sin, but hope that God will forgive me some if I only take money to kill evil people. Soejima wants man killed only to start war, not because death is deserved. Is waste of life.”

Kyo swallowed a little. “…Do you… do you know who the man was?”

“I am to choose one from list of three! Is bullshit, yes?”

“I see…”

“And you?”

Kyo smiled bitterly. “I… was the fourth option, I guess. But the guy sent to kill me fucked it up, so now Soejima is going to… _play_ with me first.”

“Ah, my apologies, then. If I had accepted this job, you would have died quickly.”

“I’m glad you didn’t. The other three… they’re my brothers. Everyone else Soejima and Tanaka sent failed, but I somehow get the feeling… you wouldn’t have.”

Medved’s voice was certain; not smug, but leaving no room for doubt. “No, I would not have.”

A door scraped open in the distance, and footsteps began to approach.

Kyo shivered, whispering, “I think… I think we’re going to die here, Medved…”

“Is very likely, yes. At least we will not die alone. На мирy и смерть краснa.”

_‘…‘With company, even death loses its sting.’ ’_

“I’m glad you’re here, too,” Kyo murmured. “…Though I’m sorry you got dragged into this.”

The door to Kyo’s cell creaked open, and he stared up at the unfamiliar man standing in the opening. The man didn’t speak a single word to him, just crossed the room and lifted Kyo by a fistful of the back of his shirt. Kyo grunted and pushed at the man with his good arm, trying to dig his foot into the ground to halt his half-carried march out into the hall, but there was very little he could do to stall his fate in his current condition.

Medved’s stoic voice drifted after him, “Если Вы умираете сегодня… умирай с гордостью, Сорoка.”

~*~

_-“If you die today… die with pride, magpie.”-_

Kyo wasn’t sure he was going to be able to follow Medved’s advice. He had never in his life experienced such perfect agony, and Takashi seemed to revel in his every horrified scream, his every shattered wail. Crooning constantly – like a madman, in the sweetest tones – that he wanted to know what was inside Kyo that Kaoru so coveted, the man had peeled away Kyo’s bandages and set to exploring his bullet wounds. A sadistic grin belying inquisitive words, he shoved long fingers into the holes, tearing them further and feeling the blonde’s flesh from the inside. Blood pooled up from the barely-healing wounds as the blonde thrashed wildly against his restraints, sobbing and trying to escape the invasion. Every time the pain got to be too much, and Kyo’s voice broke into silent screams under the strain, the man seemed to shiver with pleasure.

Without knowing if this had gone on for mere moments or countless hours, Kyo had found himself begging his captor to stop, crying and pleading for any kind of mercy. When a shattered bone fragment in Kyo’s knee had been pushed around – _jiggled_ – by the probing digit, turning his stomach and sending jolts of electric anguish through his spine, he had vomited and passed out. His body and mind were simply no longer able to hold up under the assault. It was a short-lived respite, however; cold water was now being dumped over him, washing away most of his mess and bringing him coughing and sputtering back to consciousness.

Takashi chuckled a bit and leaned on the table next to where Kyo’s left arm was strapped down. “Ah, little banshee… your screams are even more addictive than I’d imagined. I only wish I had more time to spend with you. But alas, work is so demanding these days, so we’ll have to make good use of the time we have.”

“N-… no more… please… p-please no more…”

The taller man ran one bloodied thumb – the thumb that had just been inside Kyo’s knee – over the blonde’s lower lip, and Kyo jerked his head away, choking on a hysterical sob. Takashi only laughed, smearing the blood down the younger man’s chin and neck to his chest, playing curiously over the rope that had previously been hidden under a now-discarded shirt. One length over his quivering stomach was grabbed and slowly, steadily pulled and Kyo whimpered, trying to follow the pull as the loops around his genitals squeezed horribly.

“ _AGH!_ STOP! OH GODS, PLEASE STOP, PLEASE?!”

“Mmm… credit where it’s due, Niikura always did have such a way with his rope games…”

Takashi’s other hand slid down to undo the fly of his captive’s pants so he could watch the rope’s slow, constricting slide. Kyo arched as high as the restraints would allow, a shrill wail escaping him as the rope was pulled and pulled and pulled, until he began to truly fear his flesh was going to be cut off. The abuse on such sensitive flesh was sending vicious, burning lightning through his system until his every nerve sang with jarring agony, sending him into helpless spasms in a purely instinctive attempt to escape the pain. Humming pleasurably at the scream, Takashi released the rope and Kyo dropped back onto the table, panting and crying.

“You bleed beautifully as well… a nice, steady flow over such smooth, pretty skin… quite the treat,” Takashi murmured. “You know… I would like to take something away from you.”

“No!” Kyo sobbed, trying to squirm away from the man in spite of the torment his every movement incited. The words were particularly foreboding after the assault on his privates and pure horror gripped him at the core. “No, no, no, please, no, please stop, please?!”

“It’s okay,” Takashi assured him with a sickeningly sweet voice, one hand holding his cheek in a mockery of affection while his other fished a tiny vial out of his shirt pocket. “It’ll be a nice bonding experience for you and me. Something we can have in common.”

Takashi climbed up on the table, straddling Kyo’s torso as he unscrewed the cap on the tiny vial. It had a little dropper over the mouth. Kyo panicked, screaming and thrashing with everything he had as the older man grabbed a fistful of his hair to keep his head in place as the bottle was positioned over his right eye.

“You know, it wasn’t actually Kaoru who cut my face and ruined my eye. No… I had the fucker pinned and I was ready to stab him through the heart, I was so tired of him always trying to ruin Osamu. Nnnh, I hate to admit it, but he looked so fucking good under me… the thought of killing him made me _so goddamn hard_.”

A single drop escaped the bottle and landed on Kyo’s eye and he shrieked, his voice hitting an inhuman pitch of sheer, unadulterated agony as it felt like the organ was melting inside the socket. More drops followed, and every single one was a fresh, fiery shock to his system. As he flailed, wildly trying to escape this latest torment, Takashi’s hips ground against his heaving abdomen, a telltale heat and stiffness rubbing insistently against him.

“But Osamu… if Osamu had one weakness, it was that worthless brother of his. Kaoru turned him against me, my best friend! Can you imagine? He fought me to save the little shit, and wound up catching me across the face with my own fucking blade. But it wasn’t enough for Kaoru, oh no! He had to kill him, had to take him away from me! And I will never… _never_ forgive him for it.”

Kyo sobbed hysterically as wet heat pooled around his right eye, trying to determine if it was tears or blood. He could still feel the orb moving, intact and mobile beneath his eyelids, but even if he forced himself to open the eye, his vision on that side had gone all black. Pain was driving like a spike directly into his brain on that side, mingling with the agony in his limbs and tearing him apart. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take, and worse, he couldn’t think of anything to convince him to hold out through this torture. No one was coming to save him, he had nothing to offer that might convince Takashi to end his suffering, and he certainly wasn’t in any shape to fight or run; there was no escape from this place until he died.

Takashi was still rocking against him, his sweat- and blood-slicked frame sliding against the table and dragging at his restrains under the larger man’s movements. Kyo heard the rasp of a zipper, felt the sickening drag of overheated flesh grinding directly into his belly, before the rope around him constricted again, brutally. As his head threw back into a scream his throat couldn’t fully support, he heard a low moan and a growled expletive before another bodily fluid was added to the mess covering him.

“Aaahhhh… beautiful,” Takashi purred. “Such a shame I can’t fuck you… but I simply couldn’t stand to sully myself with Niikura’s leftovers.” He slid off of his victim then, languidly undoing the restraints binding him to the table and walking towards the door. “I think I’m spent for the evening. I have to save something for tomorrow, right? Can’t use you up all at once.”

“No…” Kyo sobbed weakly, his voice dropping to a shaky whimper. “No more… please… no more… no more… please… no more…”

“Ah, such a sweet little banshee… you know, I’m not without sympathy. How about this: if you can make it past this door in the next,” Takashi checked his watch, “let’s say five minutes, I will release you back into Niikura’s custody. How’s that?”

Kyo just stared at him, horrified and trying to catch his breath, his one functioning eye rolling wildly back and forth between his tormentor and the door.

Takashi smiled sweetly and glanced down at his watch again. “Four minutes, thirty seconds…”

Kyo gasped and forced himself to move, rolling off of the table to hit the floor with a sickening thud. It hurt – _gods_ did it hurt – but at this point, all the suffering was flowing together into one static haze, chewing once more at the edge of his consciousness. His hearing was cutting in and out, and the world around him was beginning to blur and fade. He clung to the pain desperately, struggling to stay awake this time. With one working leg and arms that moved slowly, clumsily through thick misery, the blonde began to drag himself towards the door, desperate for freedom he’d been promised. He couldn’t stop to think of his pride, couldn’t stop to think that his captor was almost certainly lying to him; he just had to get out of this place.

“Three minutes.”

_‘Kaoru…’_

_‘If I can just make it that far…’_

_‘Kaoru will help me… He’ll make everything better…’_

_‘He’ll make the pain stop…’_

“Two minutes… come on, little banshee, you’re so close!”

Kyo sobbed as he felt his mind drifting further and further away from his body, even as he strained for the exit. Every part of him just hurt so much, and his every movement made it all so much worse. He was less than half a meter away from the door, one shaking hand stretching out for the portal that could make all of his aches go away, when the blackness swept up over him. As his body shut itself down once more, the last thing he registered was Takashi’s voice overhead, laughing indulgently.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first few bits of Russian in this chapter - the untranslated bits that Medved is saying to himself before he starts talking to Kyo - is the Lord's Prayer:  
> Our Father, which art in heaven,  
> Hallowed be thy Name.  
> Thy Kingdom come.  
> Thy will be done in earth,  
> As it is in heaven.  
> Give us this day our daily bread.  
> And forgive us our trespasses,  
> As we forgive them that trespass against us.  
> And lead us not into temptation,  
> But deliver us from evil.  
> Amen.  
> I don't speak a word of Russian myself, so I'm taking other people's words for all of the translations. My apologies to anyone who speaks both languages if I messed any of it up. Don't worry; this is the only chapter where I don't auto-translate his native tongue quite so much.


	35. Chapter 35

The sound of an unmoving body being dragged across cement was a distinctive one. A massive frame pushed itself up easily from the floor, crossing a tiny room with the dull clank of ankle manacles, and electric blue eyes watched from the shadows through the window as Kyo was returned to his cell. Medved’s little neighbor was looking the worse for wear; his bullet wounds unwrapped and bleeding sluggishly, the flesh around his right eye horribly swollen and red, his face still baring the hallmarks of agonized sobbing and screaming. He was lifeless, but two guards attended him this time. One was dragging his limp form by the lengths of rope crossing artfully over his back, the other holding a small box of plastic bottles. The first dropped his burden in the center of the room unceremoniously, wiping his hands on his pants with a disgusted look on his face before heading back for the exit. The second stopped him with one hand, gesturing to the still form derisively.

“Boss said to make sure this one eats.”

“What?” The first guard grimaced. “How am I supposed to do that? He’s covered in blood and spunk and gods-know-what-else, I don’t want to touch him!”

The second gave him a hard look. “You ditch this just to keep your hands clean and we’re both going to be next on Soejima’s list. You want that?”

The first hesitated, then grumbled and rolled Kyo over with one foot, kneeling to grab him by the chain around his neck with one hand and slap him with the other. “Hey! Wake up!”

“Here, go sit him up against the wall. How much do you suppose he weighs?” the second asked, setting his box down and digging a couple bottles out.

The first grunted, dragging their captive to the far wall and propping him up against it. “The fuck should I know? Forty, maybe forty-five kilos? Two bottles should be fine.” He growled, shaking the blonde impatiently and slapping him again. “WAKE UP!”

Kyo jerked a bit, crying out hoarsely and trying to make sense of his surroundings as his one eye fluttered in dazed bewilderment. In the shadows beyond the tiny window, Medved sighed a bit in relief. The little bird wasn’t entirely lost, then; that was good. Kyo was his diversion. The longer he could hold out, the longer Medved had to seek a way out of this prison before Soejima’s attention turned to him. He was very sure that after the first session with that madman, he’d be too injured to manage much, and after the noises he’d heard earlier, he’d started to worry that he and his tiny neighbor were going to meet their deaths before an opportunity for escape presented itself.

 Besides, he kind of liked Kyo. The fragile-looking scrap of a man in the next cell over was the only company he had, and the fact that the blonde spoke even some clumsy approximation of his native tongue was terribly endearing.

The second guard shoved one of the bottles under his nose. “Drink this.”

Kyo reeled back, startled and instantly wary. “Wha-? No!”

“I wasn’t asking. Come on, open up!”

The second guard batted away the weak arms trying to hold him off, pinning one against the wall and leaning in to press the mouth of the first of two bottles against their prisoner’s lips. His remaining free arm – the injured one – continued to push desperately but ineffectually at the men pinning him down until the first guard caught it and held it aside as well.

“I don’t want it!” Kyo cried out as he tried to duck and squirm away from the bottle, shaking his head frantically.

 “Just fucking drink it, you little shit,” the first guard snarled, one hand lashing out to punch at the side of the blonde’s face. “I’ll break your damn jaw if I have to; it’s not like Soejima needs you for information!”

 “No! Leave me alo-GKH!”

They managed to shove the bottle past his teeth and he gagged immediately as a thick fluid tasting of fake bananas, vitamins, and chalk flooded his throat without warning. His head knocked against the wall and he spasmed, coughing and sputtering around the bottle as he jerked his head side to side in an attempt to escape. The first guard grabbed him by the jaw and held him in place while the second squeezed the bottle, pushing the foul substance down his throat as he kicked and squirmed against them. In this manner, they managed to get most of both bottles into their thrashing captive, and Kyo only managed to spend what little energy he had left on top of aggravating his injuries.

When the bottles were empty, the guards released the blonde and he pitched to one side, gasping for air. His entire body shuddered as he retched, curling up around his stomach when it railed in protest of the fluid forced into it. The guards stood, the first snarling in disgust at the mess on his hands and moving to wash them in the tiny sink as the second recollected his supplies.

“Here,” the second grunted, tossing a couple rolls of gauze to the ground by Kyo’s face. “You puke and we’re staying in here until you’ve licked up every last drop, understand?”

Kyo’s eye widened and he clamped both hands over his mouth, pressing further down against the floor as he nodded. The guards left, slamming the door behind them, and Medved moved away from the window to settle back into his previous position sitting against the back wall of is cell. He already knew the chains around his ankles prevented him from reaching them when they opened his door next, so he made no move to attack them, biding his time. A faint smirk did tug at his lips, however, when he noted that they were much less cocky in his cell than they had been in Kyo’s. Brave when fighting against sheep…

“How… how much do you think he weighs?” the second guard muttered.

“I don’t know!” the first growled back, irritated, then turned his attention back to Medved. “…Hey, Russian! How much do you weigh?”

Medved just stared at them. The less these idiots knew about him, the better, and the less intelligent they thought he was, the less careful they would be around him. Happily, most people in this country seemed to automatically assume he was nothing more than a big, dumb ox.

“Stupid fucker. Come on, you have to speak _some_ Japanese!” The guard tried again, speaking very loudly, “How. Much. Do. You. Weigh? Weight? Your weight?! Kilos! You!”

Too easy. Medved spoke then, letting his accent drop to an almost incomprehensible slur. “Kilo? Hundred-three-ten kilo.”

“… _Did he just say he’s a hundred and thirty fucking kilos?!_ ” The second guard whispered.

“Just… just fucking give him the bottles and let’s get out of here,” the first responded, one hand resting anxiously over where his gun was hidden.

The second counted out seven bottles and tossed them towards Medved, keeping well out of the larger man’s reach. The Russian just stared at them, keeping his face impassive as they backed out of his room in a poorly-concealed hurry that had him struggling to contain his laughter. When he heard the hallway door shut, he grabbed one of the bottles and went back to the window, peering through at his little neighbor.

Kyo had managed to drag himself onto the toilet, straddling it backwards as he used the sink mounted on the tank to clean up as much as possible. He seemed to be switching between flushing his right eye – grimacing painfully at the water’s sting – and rinsing the mess of blood, sweat, cum, vomit, and the thick liquid he’d been force-fed off of his face and torso. Medved was reminded of a gory little bird in a birdbath.

“Oi, Soroka,” he called, holding the bottle up to the bars, “What does this say? I cannot read your ridiculous alphabet.”

Kyo glanced up at him, blinking against the water dripping over his face and squinting a bit to see the item in question. He didn’t actually need to read the text, though; he’d lived on the damned things for a while when he’d been homeless and a sale made them the cheapest “food” he could find. “…It’s a… it’s like a cheap meal-replacement drink. A protein shake. Banana flavored.”

Medved grunted and opened the bottle, taking a drink and immediately pulling a face. “Is disgusting!”

Kyo gave a weak little laugh that almost broke into a sob at the end. “Yeah… yeah, I know it is.”

Medved left to collect the rest of his bottles, settling back down to systematically force them down one at a time. They were foul, but he needed to keep himself strong if he were ever to escape. And besides, he’d eaten worse in his life. For a while, the white noise of water splashing around in the next room was the only sound between them.

“…Medved?” Kyo’s voice came at length, sounding a little unsure.

“Yes?”

“Can… will you… talk to me? I… I don’t want to fall asleep again…” He was desperately tired, but he hurt so much, he was a little afraid that if he went to sleep now, he’d never wake up again. And he had the feeling that if he _did_ wake up, it would be because he was being taken for another session with Soejima. So he was trying to stay awake as long as possible.

“Of course. What would you like to talk about?”

“Umm… hmm… What’s your home like?”

Medved cocked his head. “My home in Russia, or the place I am living at now?”

“…I don’t know. Both, I guess? What… what were you taken away from?”

“Ahh.” Medved leaned back against the wall. “Is too long of story, I think.”

“Will you tell me the short version?”

“Hmm… Few years ago, I was hitman in Russia. Is all I have ever done, and I am very big and strong, so I am very good at this. But, I came here to escape some people who are… not so fond of me, because I took job to kill some of their friends. They already killed my wife and son, and I am from orphanage, so there is anything for me to go back for. Is not so bad here, anyways. I share building with others from my homeland who help me get settled, and we take jobs as bodyguards or hitmen for your country’s mafias. Soejima calls on us often to do his dirty work for him. Getting caught like this is always risk we take in our type of work, but is embarrassing, yes?”

“I guess… You had a wife? What was she like?”

“Oh yes. My Yeva…” Medved chuckled, closing his eyes in remembrance. “She was _beautiful_ woman. Gold hair, fine skin… and the most amazing breasts! She was little, only tiny bit taller than you, but stubborn and wild as hellcat; she killed three of the men sent after me before they got her. And she gave me good, strong son, though he almost killed her, he was so big.”

“Like his father, I take it?” Kyo guessed wryly, having caught part of the conversation before about his neighbor’s weight.

“Of course!”

“How tall are you?”

Medved grinned. “More than two meters. I am tall even for my people; in your country, I am giant.”

Kyo sputtered, taken aback. The logistics of a woman his own size being with a man that big absolutely boggled his mind. Swallowing, he asked, “Do you miss them? Your wife and son, I mean?”

“Of course. But, they are waiting for me now in Heaven, so I do not mourn their passing. I can be patient until is my time to die and see them again.”

The blonde shook his head, setting to wrapping his wounds with the gauze he’d been given now that he had himself as clean as he could get. It was a bit dizzying with only his left eye, but he was terrified to open his right. The sting of whatever Soejima had put into it was gone since he’d rinsed the chemicals away, but he had no way of knowing if it was working anymore, and he was too afraid of the possibility that he’d been blinded to test it. The dizziness might also have been due to his exhaustion, but he continued to fight against that with everything he had. It was getting hard to think of other things to ask his neighbor, though.

Medved took care of that problem for him. “…Well, Soroka?”

“Huh?”

“I told you about my home. Now you are supposed to be polite and tell me about yours.”

“Oh…” Kyo shifted a bit, uncomfortable. “I… don’t know if there’s a short version for how I got to be where I am now.”

“Is fine. We have time, yes?”

Kyo frowned, trying to think of an appropriate starting point. “…Well… I had this friend named Kisaki… and he liked to gamble…”

~*~

Toshiya chewed on his thumbnail nervously, curled up in a cushioned chair with his free arm looped loosely around his legs, watching his boss with worried eyes. Shinya occupied the chair next to him, staring resolutely at the floor in front of his feet, hands wrapped gently around Miyu, who was curled up in his lap. Before them, Kaoru paced restlessly, arms crossed over his chest, visibly fuming with pent up rage and frustration. He didn’t look like he’d slept much that night. The silence had been stretching on between them for over an hour now as they waited on their fourth.

At length, the office door opened with a soft whisper of a breeze from the hallway, and all three heads swiveled to watch as Die stepped inside, shutting the door again behind him. He had clearly not slept at all, having been out all night organizing the search teams. The clothes he’d worn to the club were streaked with sweat and street grime, and dark circles weighed heavily under his eyes. Crossing the room silently, his every movement carrying the obvious strain of exhaustion, he sank into the chair on the other side of Toshiya’s and ran one hand through his hair.

“…Well?” Kaoru demanded.

Die shook his head, not meeting his boss’s eyes. “The dogs followed the trail to an alleyway, and we found the body of the guy that shot him in a dumpster, but… no Kyo.”

“Fuck!” Kaoru hissed, resuming his pacing.

 “He… he may have been… shot again,” Die continued reluctantly. “There was a second blood puddle with some drag marks, and… more spent casings than bullets in the attacker.”

Kaoru seethed, teeth bared but saying nothing. He moved like a caged beast; blood boiling, yearning to lash out and sink his claws into those who dared oppose his will, but unable to see or reach his tormentors. If there was one thing he hated – completely and unequivocally – it was being helpless in the face of anything that threatened to take away the things he had strived for so long to obtain in his life. He had worked so hard and lost so much to earn his family, his home, his stability and his power, and now someone was plucking at the threads of the web he’d fought so damn hard to spin. It drove him mad in a way that few things could.

“What are you going to do if we find him, Kao?” Toshiya wondered gently.

“I’m going to fucking murder whoever took him!” Kaoru hissed, his temper flaring wildly. “What do you think I’m going to do?!”

Toshiya flinched a little and ducked his head.

“Kaoru… come on, now,” Shinya scolded, gently. “We’re all upset, but you have to be rational; you know we can’t start a full-on war over one person, especially not a courtesan. Not even our closest allies will support us.”

Kaoru’s fist shot out once, and a hole appeared in the plaster wall of his office.

“He was a companion, Kao,” Die sighed tiredly. “I liked him – we all did – but I feel like someone’s trying to piss you off enough to make some really bad decisions… and it’s working.”

“You’re goddamn right it’s working! He’s mine, do you understand me?! _Mine! My_ property! And somebody fucking stole him!” Kaoru took a deep breath to stabilize himself, then waved a dismissive hand angrily. “What does it fucking matter what I would do anyway; we’re no closer to finding the bastard that’s screwing with me. Totchi’s been stabbed _,_ there have been two attempts on Shinya, and one on you, and now Kyo’s been shot and kidnapped _,_ and we have nothing _._ ”

Shinya held Miyu closer, closing his eyes, and Toshiya tried to muffle a dejected sniffle in the sleeve of his sweater. Die just hung his head, unable to watch Kaoru’s frenzied pacing when he felt like he’d let his best friend down so badly. Again. Another stretch of unbearable silence thickened the air in the room as everyone tried to come to terms with their latest loss, and what the attack might mean for the rest of the family.

 

 


	36. Chapter 36

Hot breath panted against Kyo’s cheek and he shuddered, revolted, as a slimy tongue ran over his face, collecting tears and the fresh blood dripping languidly from his newest wounds. He tried to turn his face away, but a blood-slicked hand grabbed him by the hair and pulled him back into place roughly, and he squeezed his eye shut in response, trembling. What else could he do? None of his attempts to fight back had done anything more than amuse his tormentor, spend all of his remaining energy, and exacerbate his ever-multiplying injuries. Soejima shifted and Kyo opened his eye again, the short blade held delicately between the older man’s fingers coming back into view once more. He whimpered, blood bubbling up from his tattered lips as he felt the wet steel press ever-so-lightly against his left eyebrow.

“No, no, no, no, please, no, no, n- AH!” A broken cry interrupted the blonde’s protests as the blade slid through his flesh again.

“You should thank me,” the older man purred, delighted. “I could just rip them out. But how could I mar such a lovely face any more than you already had with these filthy things?”

Soejima’s knife was impossibly sharp, and the cut it left behind was clean and precisely deep. As the curved barbell that had once rested over his eye clattered onto a tray beside his lip- and nose-rings, Kyo could only quiver and sob against the fresh pain. More blood poured out over his face, hot and thick, and Soejima came in again to lick it up, reveling in the heavy tremors wracking his plaything’s body. Maybe it was just the knowledge that the blonde was a treasure stolen from the man he hated most, or maybe it was simply for the desperate flavor of Kyo’s reactions, but it had been a long time since he’d anything quite so decadent beneath him.

“Nnnh, I love the way you scream, the way you taste, the way you _shake_ ,” he murmured, voice husky with want. “Makes me want to…”

Soejima’s looming form pulled back, and for a fleeting second, Kyo felt relief. Even a moment’s respite… He felt his restraints coming undone and cried out as he was roughly flipped onto his stomach, his lower half dragged off the table. There was a brief instant of struggle, where he tried to catch his weight on his good leg and push himself up off the table with his arms, but a hand between his shoulder blades slammed him back down, knocking his head against the steel and holding him in place bent over. He simply lay there, dazed, before he registered a vague sort of loosening of pressure around his body. Dread gripped him when he realized the remains of his pants had been cut away, and his rope harness was following suit.

Scrabbling frantically at the table underneath him, Kyo struggled to push free of the restrictive hand on his back. “No, NO! Y-you said-! You s-said you wouldn’t-!”

“I said I wouldn’t sully _myself_ with Kaoru’s leftovers.”

Kyo had no idea what that meant until he managed to twist his head around enough to see Soejima drawing his gun. His eye went wide, horror sinking into his belly like a stone. “Oh gods…”

He panicked. He bucked and thrashed and cried, trying to drag himself away from his tormentor, desperate to avoid violation by the one object that terrified him the most. Soejima loved it, pressing his hips against his captive’s to hold the smaller man in place as his free hand fisted into golden hair once more. Flicking the safety off, he pressed the muzzle against bloody, torn lips, pushing even as Kyo fought to twist away.

“Nnnh!”

“Open up or I’ll blow your teeth out,” Soejima growled. “This is all the lube you’re getting.”

Kyo wept, eyes squeezing shut in fear. He forced himself to open his mouth and whimpered as the weapon was shoved in roughly. Soejima used a gun with a built-in silencer; the barrel was incredibly long, and the front edge scraped a path from the roof of his mouth all the way to the back of his throat, and even then he couldn’t fit the whole thing. But the man kept pressing and pressing, and Kyo was forced to open up his throat and swallow the end of the weapon or risk gagging on it. It tasted horrible, it hurt, it terrified him, and he felt like so much trash for having it in his mouth. He was deeply afraid of the twisting in his stomach – of vomiting in this moment – because he had no idea if it would make Soejima pull out or if the man would simply let him drown in it.

“That’s a good little banshee,” Soejima purred, grinding his clothed erection against his captive’s bare ass almost yearningly. “Suck on it.”

Shaking, Kyo’s mouth worked at the barrel of the gun, shuddering at Soejima’s hedonistic moan. When the business end of the weapon was thoroughly slicked with blood and saliva, and the sight of the blonde choking on it became too tempting to handle, Soejima pulled the gun out and stood up, licking his lips in anticipation. Kyo coughed and retched a little before crying out as his legs were kicked apart mercilessly, sending a sharp shock of pain stabbing out from his injured knee. The unforgiving steel pressed against his entrance and his mouth fell open in a scream he had no air left to voice, his back arching in wretched agony as the object was forced into him.

“Try not to kick around too much,” Soejima panted, his voice gone heavy and breathy with his excitement as he began to fuck his little toy with the gun, having to exert more pressure than he’d expected to get the weapon in and out of the constrictive passage. “I would hate for this thing to go off and cut our fun short.”

Kyo curled in on himself as much as he could, pressing against the table and wrapping his trembling arms tight around his head. He tried to hold as still as possible, petrified by the prospect of that gun going off inside of him, possibly paralyzing him or ripping him apart internally to die a slow, horrible death. But he was working himself into a fit of hyperventilation, gasping desperately between hysterical sobs, and every strained breath jolted his body perilously. This latest game of Soejima’s was less physically damaging than the others had been, but somehow more appalling; less about tangible pain, and more about violation, humiliation, and dominance. Kyo found himself too stricken by the act to do anything but cry. A very small part of him – a part that left him utterly terrified of himself – almost wished the gun _would_ go off, and he would be allowed to die quickly.

“Nnnh, banshee…” Soejima moaned. He was obviously very near his peak, and the pleasure in his voice made Kyo sick. “You’re so tight… I can almost feel you tearing… it’s beautiful. Ahhh, if only there was some way to wash Niikura’s stink off of you, so I could feel you for myself.”

Kyo heard a zipper come undone and shook his head frantically against the table as the gun’s thrusting became more erratic, slamming deeper and deeper until blood trickled freely down his thighs. He heard a broken, wretched voice rasping “no, no, no” over and over again, and realized disjointedly that it was his own. Soejima wasn’t even bothering to hold him down anymore; his free hand gone to jerk himself off to the beat of Kyo’s sobbing pleas.

“Maybe… nnnh… flush you out with… ahhh… bleach, or… unh! boiling water… fuck!”

The gun went still and Kyo flinched as liquid heat spattered over his hip and butt. When it was removed completely, his leg collapsed from underneath him, sending him crashing to the floor in a disgraceful heap. He lay where he landed, weeping and trying to just breathe, as Soejima recollected himself overhead. At length, he heard the sound of the gun being set on the table, and his tormentor rustling around in the little tray of “tools” he kept nearby for his games.

“Yes, I think I like that idea… First though, we’ll take care of the bastard’s more tangible mark,” Soejima murmured.

Kyo felt a hand slide against his neck, and the weight of his collar being lifted. His eye snapped open, wide and panic-stricken, in the realization of what his captor was about to do. His collar – the physical manifestation of Kaoru’s claim on him, the first gift his master had ever given him – was going to be taken away. It wasn’t like he’d imagined it would be. It didn’t feel like he was being freed, it felt like he was being _stripped;_ as if without that chain and its charm, he would be completely bare and completely vulnerable, and he would no longer belong to Kaoru. He would be without protection, without belonging, without the worth he’d so tenuously managed to garner.

It struck him in a place he didn’t know had existed within himself, and when he heard wire-cutters snap through the chain, that unstable core in him exploded _._ It felt like his mind and his body disconnected for a moment, and all that was left controlling him was a cornered animal beaten one too many times. Without even knowing what he was doing, he found himself flying off the floor; his fist lashing out to crash against Soejima’s stunned face as a shriek tore itself out of his throat. Soejima, having been crouching over him, was knocked back, and Kyo landed on him, screaming and beating the man manically with everything he had. It only lasted a few wild, hectic moments before a heavy boot came crashing into his side, knocking him off of his captor and sending him sprawling across the floor.

Soejima was on his feet in the space of a single frantic heartbeat, his face gone dark red with fury as blood trickled from his nose and mouth. Kyo didn’t care. He simply lurched forward, grasping his discarded collar from the floor and clutching it in both hands desperately to his chest. And when a rain of blows came pouring down over him, fists and shoes slamming against him from what seemed like every direction, all he could do was curl up around his treasure and try to withstand the abuse. He needed his collar; its emblem and its claim of Kaoru’s ownership over him. If he could hold on to this – hold onto _something_ – he could stave off the madness a little longer and keep his soul from shattering entirely.

At least holding on to this, if he died in this place – if the next time anyone saw him, he was nothing more than a pile of time-bleached, broken bones standing testament to a lifetime of downtrodden misery – maybe whoever found him would know that once upon a time, he had meant something to somebody.

~*~

Toshiya picked listlessly at his dinner, trying to be very subtle when he glanced worriedly over at Die. His lover wasn’t even pretending to eat, and he wondered if he should say something. They all knew the redhead had phases where he would stop eating, usually if something was bothering him, but it came from a place inside the man that none of them had ever really been able to touch. Toshiya was secure enough in his love of the older man to know that he hated those phases, just as he hated anything else that might threaten Die’s health or happiness, but he wasn’t secure enough in their relationship yet to know whether or not he had any place trying to push his lover to take better care of himself in these moments.

“Die… love…” he whispered, so softly he wasn’t even sure the redhead would hear it.

There was a brief pause before Die’s eyes flicked over to him, questioning behind the fall of red hiding his downturned face.

Toshiya gave an encouraging smile and nudged his lover’s hand towards his untouched chopsticks. “Please? Just a little?”

Die looked from Toshiya to their hands, looking utterly baffled, as though actually eating his dinner tonight had never even occurred to him. For a moment, it seemed as though he would refuse and sink back into his brooding, and Toshiya nudged a little harder, biting his lip. Stiffly, Die wrapped his fingers around the utensils. Peeking again at his blue-haired lover, taking in the painfully hopeful expression on the younger man’s face, he set himself to trying to eat at least some of his meal. He stalwartly refused to be in any way the source of Toshiya’s unhappiness if it was in his power to avoid it. So absorbed in one another, Toshiya and Die both missed Shinya’s look of surprise, or Kaoru’s tired smile.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you boys so put-out,” a smooth voice cut through the tension in the room, rather jarringly. “Don’t tell me you’ve given up already?”

All heads shot up, taking in the immaculately-dressed form leaning casually on the doorframe, a manila envelope held between two fingers. Toshiya perked significantly and Die and Shinya both smiled in exhausted optimism, though Shinya much more subtly. Kaoru so rarely consented to call on help from outside the family, too proud and too resentful of those who dismissed him because of his relative youth, so they were deeply gratified every time someone actually showed up when he did. Of course, they never really doubted that this particular ally would come to their aid.

“Yoshiki,” Kaoru breathed with obvious relief, standing to greet his guest. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

“Of course. Anything for my favorite piece of sewer trash, even if it means spending a few days in this filthy little shanty of yours.” Yoshiki inclined his head politely, smiling. “Please, don’t let me interrupt your meal; I’ve already eaten.”  

Kaoru snorted and sat back in his chair. “What did Your Highness bring for me, besides pomp and arrogance?”

“Just your mail, my dear rat.” Yoshiki tossed the envelope to the younger man. “There was a courier outside trying to work up the courage to knock. Suffice to say, he never managed.”

Kaoru flipped open the envelope – noting that his guest had unsealed it already – and pulled out a single sheet of thick paper. What he saw made his face go dark with ill-contained rage, and he slammed the paper down onto the table. **“** _ **Where is that fucking courier?!**_ **”**

“Gone,” Yoshiki informed him coolly. “I sent him away so you wouldn’t kill him. There’s nothing he could have told us that this picture does not.”

The others leaned in to look at the image as well. Toshiya covered his mouth with one hand, looking upset, and Die grimaced, moving to wrap an arm around his lover. Shinya pressed his lips together in a thin line, looking somewhat crestfallen. It was Kyo, covered in gore and strapped to a heavy steel table, screaming as Takashi Soejima knelt over him. It was impossible to tell what the man was doing over the blonde’s face, but everyone in the room knew Soejima well enough to know that it couldn’t be anything less than horrifying. Kyo looked entirely too small under the larger man, like a battered child, and it gave those looking at the picture an unfamiliar pang of guilt to see him that way.

“I should have known,” Shinya lamented, his voice soft. “After the Christmas party… anyone else would have just killed him.”

“Little brother…” Die murmured, looking crushed. He was supposed to protect his family, and now… He couldn’t help but feel like it would have been far better if Kyo had been killed, given the alternative.

“Oh gods,” Toshiya whispered helplessly. “It’s not… he’s… this isn’t supposed to happen to him! He’s just a companion, he’s not supposed to get hurt! Not like this!”

“I’m going to kill him,” Kaoru stated flatly. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

“Kaoru, no!” Shinya begged. “We can’t! We’re too evenly matched against him!”

“We’d win.”

“Barely! And we’d lose a hell of a lot of our own people doing it!”

“Shinya’s right,” Yoshiki said. “A head-on war with Soejima would not end well for you.”

Kaoru lurched to his feet, furious. “IF YOU THINK I’M JUST GOING TO SIT HERE AND ALLOW-”

“Shut up, Niikura,” Yoshiki snapped.

Kaoru reeled back, startled. Toshiya, Shinya, and Die just gaped at Yoshiki, utterly stunned. The older blonde was hardly fazed, however; sternly meeting Kaoru’s stare dead-on.

“You are afforded a great many indulgences for your position in this family, but what you’re considering now is the same selfish, short-sighted bullshit that got your brother into trouble. You’ve only just barely managed to convince some of the other families that you aren’t as reckless as he was; do you really want to throw that all away? And besides, remember what I told you before? I’m certain he’s not working alone.”

Kaoru snarled and opened his mouth to respond, but Yoshiki cut him off again, his eyes bright with wicked intent.

“That being said, Soejima obviously doesn’t know that you know. Take another look at that picture. If he’d sent it on purpose, wouldn’t it be higher quality? Wouldn’t he be showcasing every last wound he’d inflicted? Wouldn’t he be facing the camera, _challenging_ you? I’d bet damn good money that this picture is his partner’s doing, and he thinks he has more time to play. He isn’t ready _._ ”

Kaoru’s mouth snapped shut, looking down at the picture again. In the expectant silence of the room, the others could almost hear the wheels turning in his head. The picture was blurry, in such poor resolution that it was likely taken with a cell phone. It was taken from some distance away, almost as if whoever had taken it had been peeking through the doorway at the time. Really, it was only clear enough to identify the two men in the room and a general impression of their facial expressions, but none of the gruesome details Soejima typically savored. Soejima himself looked entirely oblivious. When Kaoru’s face rose again, his cheeks held an excited flush, and his eyes were black with predatory thrill.

“He doesn’t know…”

“Given you two’s history, I imagine they’re expecting an all-out war directed at Soejima’s forces whenever he finishes his games with your pet. But you, of all people, know that there are much quieter, much more discrete ways to skin a cat,” Yoshiki purred. “Shinya and I can work on figuring out who his partner is; who tipped their hand. Toshiya can get the word out to your people throughout the city to hunker down and prepare to defend themselves should the assault come early. You have tonight, at the very least, to take your advantage like the opportunistic rat you are.”

“…You beautiful, brilliant piece of aristocratic shit!” Kaoru’s eyes snapped over to meet his best friend’s. “Die!”

Die straightened a bit, feeding off of his boss’ exhilaration as he realized just what Yoshiki was telling them. “Yeah, Kao?”

Kaoru ran a hand over his own forearm, where he had once worn the holster for his poisoned needles. “I’m feeling a bit nostalgic. Would you care to join me on a walk this evening, just you and I?”

Die grinned viciously. “Fuck yes.”

 

 


	37. Chapter 37

Medved watched on in silence as Kyo was returned to his holding cell, carelessly tossed to the floor with a sickening sound of bare flesh hitting stone. He was conscious this time, if only just, and he writhed where he landed, his every movement stiff and slow with agony as he fought to ease his pain, desperate for relief when every position was equally excruciating. The Russian was reminded of a caterpillar in the throes of death, twisting helplessly against its own suffering. When the guards went to feed him, Kyo hardly had any strength left to fight back; they simply pinned him to the ground on his back and pried his mouth open, jamming the first bottle in. With blood flooding one nostril from where his piercing had been cut out, he struggled to breathe, grabbing weakly at the hand holding the bottle in his mouth, and he choked more than once, but his struggles were entirely ineffective, and the guards paid them little mind.

Once he was sure Kyo was at least still alive, Medved left the window to wait for them to deliver his protein shakes, not wanting to be caught showing any kind of concern or interest for his neighbor. As soon as he received his own “meal” for the day, he went back, intending to talk some more. But when he caught sight of the smaller man this time, he caught himself, frowning. Kyo was lying curled on his side where he’d been left, clutching his stomach and taking deep, shaking breaths, probably trying to keep himself from throwing up. His back was facing their shared wall, and the thick streaks of blood staining the backs of his thighs spoke loudly of a very specific abuse, standing out even among his extensive collection of injuries.

Medved had been living and working with or around various criminal organizations for most of his life, and he was deeply accustomed to violence against even innocent people. But there were certain acts that he believed no human being should ever be subjected to – acts that were unforgivable whether the victim was good or evil – and to know that such a cruelty had been committed to his tragically good-natured little neighbor was a bit sickening, even for him.

“…Soroka?” he called cautiously.

At length, a dark gold eye came around to peer over a hunched shoulder; barely half-open, unfocused and full of desperation and despair, laced with burgeoning madness. Kyo was breaking. He knew he was breaking – they both did, at this point – and he was fighting it as best he could, but with so much pushing him towards the edge of his sanity and so little to hold onto to keep him stable, it was a losing battle. Sniffling, he tipped his face up to offer his neighbor a wavering smile.

“I p-punched him in the face…”

Medved laughed softly. “Is good work, little bird.”

Kyo’s smile faded and he laid his head back down to hide it from view as his voice trembled with bitter hopelessness and exhaustion. “…I think part of me was hoping he would kill me for it…”

“…You are giving up?”

“I… I don’t know… the idea of death still terrifies me, but I… I don’t know how much I can-… it just hurts so much… I’m sorry. I know… I know after I’m gone, that he’s going to go after you…”

“Do not worry for me. I am very big and strong, yes? I do not need protection from cowardly, one-eye rats.”

“Heh, I guess not…” Swallowing nervously, Kyo unfolded his hand to stare at his broken collar. “…If… if you do make it out of here, and I… don’t… will you do something for me?”

“Maybe. What do you want? If is killing Soejima, I am already very ahead of you.”

“No, I… I just need someone to tell my master what he and Tanaka are planning.”

“You are not dead yet, Soroka.”

Kyo cringed at the reproachful tone, his voice cracking in desperation. “I-I know, but it… I think it’s going to happen, and if it does I need to know that my family… My master, and Shinya, Totchi, and Die… I need to know that they’re going to be okay. I don’t want them to get hurt; I don’t want to be the catalyst for the war that ruins them! I couldn’t stand it, I-”

“Alright, alright. Do not get so excited, I will make sure your Niikura knows. But for now, you still are living, so you go to your birdbath for cleaning and we will not speak of such things any further.”

Appeased, a great deal of tension drained out of Kyo. It was a distinct relief, knowing that even if he died here, there was a chance at least the others would be okay. Maybe it would be enough that his spirit would rest peacefully. Deflated now that that worry had been stripped away, he murmured wearily, “I don’t think I can make it… It hurts to move...”

“Do not be baby. Come, your arm already is looking infected, you must clean yourself.”

“But I’m so tired…”

“You can sleep after you are clean. You are being offensive to my… _delicate sensibilities_ ,” Medved asserted, overpronouncing the last two words as if they were unfamiliar to him. “I have no other things to look at in here; is your responsibility to stay pretty for your friendly neighbor, yes?”

Kyo closed his eye for a moment and just smiled to himself. Even if Medved was even the slightest bit homosexual – which neither of them believed for a second – the blonde was very sure that his own battered frame was nothing worth looking at to anyone but sociopaths like Soejima. He never thought he’d been all that pretty to begin with; he was a hopeless wreck now. But the man’s sarcasm and rather brusque attempt at humor really did help lift some of the weight of the horror of their situation from Kyo’s heart, and he was deeply thankful for the slight reprieve. And so, gritting his teeth, and gripping his broken collar tightly in one hand, he began the arduous task of dragging himself over to the sink to oblige his companion.

It was a long trip. He was dizzy and tired, and it felt like he was sweating despite being freezing cold. His left hand was all-but useless for the grip he held on his collar, blinding sharp pain stabbed at him from a vicious bruise in his side if he reached too far forward, and the pain in his backside made moving even his uninjured leg agonizing. And even after he made it and managed the ungainly, unbearable climb onto the toilet seat to face the sink, he had to brace himself against the wall for several minutes while his vision swam and his ears rang. The guards hadn’t left him new bandages, so he had to wash his old ones as best he could and reuse them.

All told, it took well over an hour before he managed to get himself cleaned up. Being free of all the blood – and Soejima’s cum, which he had scrubbed at until his skin was raw – was a welcome relief, but it left him colder than ever, and exhausted to the bone. Every movement took so much from him, hurt him in so many places no matter what care he took, that more than once, the temptation to just let himself fall off of his perch and pass out wherever he landed was almost overwhelming. He persevered, however; not for his own sake, because he held so little hope for himself anymore, but for Medved’s, because he didn’t want to let the man down.

“There…” he breathed tiredly, wiping as much water off of himself as he could. With some effort, he managed to lever himself off the toilet and over to the floor underneath the shared window where he preferred to rest. “Happy now?”

“Very much,” Medved responded congenially. “Here.”

There was some rustling just before a wad of something soft and warm landed on Kyo’s head. He blinked and fumbled at it for a moment until he managed to unfold it into its proper form; a simple, grey cotton tee-shirt. It was streaked with dirt in several places, smelled very much like a man had been wearing it for a couple days, and probably could have fit four or five of him at once comfortably, but still his eyes watered with gratitude. He squirmed his way into it, tucking his leg up inside as well and clutching the remaining folds to himself as he tried his very best not to cry.

“Th-… thank you, Medved,” Kyo whispered.

“Is not problem. Your people cannot handle the cold like we Russians, I know.”

Kyo hid a smile in the folds of the gifted shirt and closed his eye, finally giving in to the need to sleep. As he drifted off, he thought he heard his neighbor continue to speak, but wasn’t entirely sure if it was real or the beginning whispers of a dream, so he thought little of it.

“You know, Soroka… you are good person, I think. Like tiny version of the man I hoped my son would be.”

~*~

The intruder’s heart was racing, and he took a minute to shiver against a feeling he hadn’t experienced in many years. Apprehension, anticipation, confidence, righteousness, satisfaction; all rolled into one deliciously exhilarating rush. This had always been his place in life, not that well lit office, trapped between a cushy chair and a pile of paperwork. This; scaling the walls of mansions, flitting from shadow to shadow down darkened hallways, dodging security guards in a silent dance whose every step toed the line between life and death. This; one hand clamping over an obstacle’s mouth while the other slipped a hair-thin needle into their straining neck, easing men twice his size to the ground without a sound as they succumbed to his poisonous will, feeling tension drain from powerful bodies as life or consciousness slipped away. This; coming to stand in his target’s bedroom, shutting and locking the door behind himself, trapping his victim inside and sealing their fate. This was the only place he felt truly alive, the only thing that challenged him.

Tonight’s target in particular brought an unusual bloodlust to his heart, and his cheeks flushed with the thrill of the hunt.

Stripping off the mask that had protected his identity on his trip through the compound, Kaoru moved with well-honed grace and silence about the room. With practiced motions, he fixed a little camera to one of the bedposts before setting to carefully draping and winding ropes loosely around the figure on the bed before him. Never touching enough to startle, never constricting enough to rouse, never shifting the man enough to wake him as the web was spun. It was a delicate, time-consuming effort, and one that he very rarely indulged in even when he’d been working as a hitman just because it was so very dangerous. But the only other safe option was a quick, painless death while his victim slept, and this man deserved no such mercies.

Only when every last coil was in place did he wind the trailing end around his wrist and haul on it with all of his weight, pulling the entire series of knots and loops taut and pinning his prey down against the mattress before securing the end around a heavy bedpost. The reaction was immediate; the body on the bed wrenched and strained against the binding, a single black eye snapping open to roll about wildly as an incomprehensible, shocked curse escaped snarling lips. When that eye settled on the ominous shadow at the foot of the bed, Kaoru smirked, and Takashi Soejima went very still, hatred hanging thick in the air between them. The camera clicked and whirred-

_~FLASH~_

“Niikura, you spineless son of a bitch!” Soejima hissed, jerking at the ropes holding him in place. “What the fuck is this?! You sneak into my house and tie me down rather than confront me face to face?! Are you too much of a coward to take me in a fight like a man?!”

Kaoru smiled sweetly. “A fight between men requires more than one man, Soejima, and you are no man. You’re nothing but a pest, and I’ve come to see to it that you’ll die like one.” Stepping up onto the bed, he moved in a low crouch, coming up to kneel over the bound man, his eyes bright with predatory thrill as he continued, “Besides, you’re the one sneaking about, hiring thugs to go after my brothers, and kidnapping my pet when that failed. And it looks like even he managed to knock you around a bit. Bit off a little more than you could chew, hmm?”

_~FLASH~_

Soejima snarled and jerked at the ropes, furious that Kaoru had guessed where the bruises and abrasions on his face had come from. “I will kil-”

Kaoru punched him once, knocking the reviled face to one side with the force of the blow. “Shut up. Now, the way I see it, my family has suffered grievances from three parts of you. The rest of you is not worth my consideration, so you might survive this, assuming any of your people give enough of a damn about you to keep you from bleeding out after I leave.” Snapping on a pair of latex gloves from his pocket, he pulled a single gleaming needle from the brace around his wrist. “Personally, I have my doubts.”

“FUCK YOU, NIIKURA! YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME! YOU’RE TRASH! THAT’S ALL YOU’VE EVER BEEN AND ALL YOU’LL EVER BE! If you were HALF the man Osamu wa- GK!”

_~FLASH~_

“First this,” Kaoru murmured, grabbing Soejima by the throat and slipping the needle between the man’s lips when he went to gasp for air. He pierced the tongue that planted Soejima's corruption into his brother, driving him to madness and leading him to hurt others in his search for solace.

Soejima’s eye went wide, bucking wildly as a vicious blackness began to spread over his tongue from the puncture point, carrying with it a burning, inescapable agony. His curses became incoherent, garbled as the muscle began to slowly melt and rot away inside his mouth. Soejima realized, all at once, that there was no way out of this; his guards were likely dead, and Kaoru had come as an assassin, alone and unseen, when no one was expecting him. For the first time in his life, Soejima knew fear and helplessness.

“And then there’s this,” Kaoru continued, disgust evident as he yanked the front of the older man’s pajama pants down-

_~FLASH~_

-tuning out a gurgling shriek as he rammed his needle into more sensitive flesh. Poison spread through the organ that caused Die’s nightmares following the night Soejima tried to defile him, and to this day made Shinya flinch from unexpected touches.

Kaoru was no sadist. He didn’t derive pleasure from harming or killing others, even if he was unusually gifted at it. But this wasn’t for him; not anymore. This was for his family, and the final delicate threads of innocence they clung to, so nearly destroyed by this man’s malice. For Shinya’s tempered determination and for Toshiya’s persevering optimism. For Die’s unwavering devotion, and Kyo’s enduring faith. For the faded memory of a scrawny kid from the slums, who would do anything to find a safe, secure home for himself and his little brother. For _them_ , he savored Soejima’s every horrified wail and agonized shudder as he took his retribution.

“And finally, these.” The needle pressed between the fingers of clenched fists, piercing through thin webbing into the thicker flesh of both hands one by one. Ruining what had exchanged money for Toshiya lying broken on the floor of a filthy nightclub, choking on his own blood, and broke the promise Kaoru had made to Kyo that he would never be hurt so long as he behaved himself.

_~FLASH~_

Kaoru’s eyelids lowered almost meditatively as he watched Soejima writhe. Blood and black, putrid ooze were bubbling out of the man’s mouth now, and his crotch was a hideous mess of gradually-dissolving flesh. It was sort of fascinating. Kaoru hadn’t used this particular poison since he first realized its effects so many years ago; it was too slow, too destructive, too cruel for even his tastes. He’d refined a fresh batch of it after Toshiya had been stabbed, and he was deeply satisfied to see that at least one of the men responsible for the assault was paying for the offense. 

“I don’t know if you’ll die tonight, Soejima. If you do, I hope you go knowing that you won’t be mourned. No one will cry at your funeral. No one will drink to your name. No one will sigh wistfully, wondering if you’re in a better place. All who knew you will rejoice, knowing that you’re rotting in hell. If you’re lucky, I’ll get exceptionally drunk one night and stop by to piss on your grave. It’ll be the only visit you get.”

_~FLASH~_

Peeling off his gloves and tucking them back into his pocket – more out of habit than any real concern for leaving behind evidence – Kaoru recollected his camera and threw open the window, climbing onto the sill. Voices had collected on the other side of the bedroom door, and those outside were beginning to shake at the handle. Any second now, they would set to trying to break the thing down in response to Soejima’s screams, and Kaoru couldn’t be caught here. Sparing one last pitiless glance at the ruined man who dared cross him so many times, he pulled his mask back on and set out to meet up with his partner in crime.

~*~

Pain. Cold skin. Pain. Hot core. Pain. Sickness. Pain.

_‘Sleep… just want to sleep…’_

Pain. Bones weighed down by exhaustion. Pain. Muscles made weak by exertion. Pain.

_‘It doesn’t hurt so much when I sleep…’_

Pain. Hands grabbing at him; shaking, pulling, dragging him back towards consciousness. Pain.

_‘What?’_

One eye fluttered open, taking in a black-clad figure looming over him.

_‘No… no more… can’t take any more…!’_

Dazed and terrified, Kyo cried out hoarsely, pushing at the hands on his arms. He didn’t want to go back! He didn’t want Soejima to touch him again! He didn’t want to hurt anymore! He just wanted to sleep, until the end of days came and the world came crashing down around his ears. But he was too weak; the hands grabbing him didn’t so much as budge from his struggles, and desperation caught him by the throat.

Slowly, the static in his ears resolved into a heart-wrenchingly familiar voice. “-tle brother! Wake up! It’s me, come on, you have to wake up! Shit, you’re burning up…”

The figure over him removed one hand, lifting it to peel away its mask, letting loose a wild fall of blood-red hair over worried eyes. Kyo stared up at the man, unmoving, uncomprehending, unsure of what he was seeing. So dear to him, an answer to his prayers, and yet… it was so hard to believe – hurt so badly to believe. Surely this was just another cruel dream. Surely he had succumbed to madness. Surely nothing this good could ever happen to him, and to take solace in this vision would only end in more pain and suffering because that was all he was allowed anymore. But the image didn’t fade or shift, and the beloved redhead grinned at him as recognition slowly began to settle in.

“D-… Die?”

“Yeah, little brother, it’s me. Sorry I took so long.”

Kyo’s vision blurred as his eye watered and he flung his battered arms around the older man’s neck, weeping desperately, “Die! Die, Die, Die, Die, Die…!!!”

“Shhh, I’ve got you, you’re alright,” Die murmured gently, tugging his mask back on one-handed before wrapping his arms around Kyo’s hips and hoisting him up. “I’m going to get you out of here, but I need you to hang on and stay very quiet, okay?”

Kyo didn’t need any further incentive to cling to Die with everything he had. He couldn’t support his own weight, and only one of his hands was capable of gripping onto the man, but all that he could do, he did. His head swam horribly as Die stood and spun, heading out into the hall, but when they turned to one side to move away from the holding area, panic gripped him.

“Wait, no, stop!” he cried, tugging frantically at the redhead’s shirt. “Stop, you have to stop!”

“Shhhhh!” Die hissed anxiously. “What’s wrong?”

Kyo pointed anxiously to the door next to his own. “Medved! W-we can’t leave him here!”

“Kyo, we don’t have time for-”

“Please?! Die, please, I can’t leave him!” It was so hard to think, his head was so foggy, but this much he could manage. He had to. “He’s… he’s my friend and… he’s here because he wouldn’t kill you and Shinya and Totchi and Soejima is… he’s going to hurt him if I’m not here! Please… please don’t leave him, please?!”

“Alright, shhh, okay, okay, I’ll let him out, just be _quiet_ , okay?”

Kyo bit his lip and nodded, relaxing again. He was tired… so tired, but he had to be sure his neighbor was going to be safe too. Die set him down propped against the wall and set to picking the locks on the heavy door with tools pulled from a pouch at his belt. The simple mechanism gave way quickly under his skilled hands, and he disappeared into the darkness of the cell. He backpedaled almost immediately, however, reeling and staring into the room with wide, horrified eyes.

“Holy shit! Are you kidding me, Kyo?! That’s no man, that’s a goddamn oni!”

“Soroka?” Medved’s voice came, a bit rougher than usual with sleep and irritation, but sounding more curious than anything.

“It’s my big brother,” Kyo called back quietly, crying in relief. “He came for us… he… he’s going to save us…”

“Fuck…” Die breathed, bracing himself before going back into the cell. “I hope you can walk, guy, cause I sure as hell can’t carry you, let alone you and Kyo.”

Medved’s throaty chuckle came from the darkness and Die swore nervously. After a moment, the redhead reappeared, followed closely by the man who’d kept Kyo more or less sane through the past few days. As the Russian passed through the doorway – having to turn sideways and hunch down a bit to do so – Kyo suddenly understood why the guards and Die were so afraid of him.

Medved was a hulking wall of sheer muscle. In his late thirties – silver shooting through his close-cropped black hair and deep lines wearing at his sharp features – and if the scars decorating his bare torso were any indication, those years had been hard won. Besides his sheer bulk, it was his face that truly unsettled; with cold electric-blue eyes set under heavy brows and thin lips spread in a grin that bared teeth that had been filed to sharp points. He might have been an attractive man in his youth, but life had tempered him harshly, and the image he presented now was nothing short of frightening. And yet, when he crossed the hall and scooped Kyo up one-handed, cradling the blonde against his side like a child, he was incredibly gentle, taking great care not to jostle him around overmuch.

“Alright… ‘Medved,’” Die ventured, obviously not liking this turn of events, “This is a covert operation. I can’t be seen here, so you need to keep up and keep quiet. And Kyo is coming with me once we’re out of here. Understood?”

“Of course. I will carry Soroka, and you will open the locks, yes? I have need to speak with your master anyway. Lead on, Обезяна.”

“What did you just call me?” the redhead demanded even as he set off for the exit.

“Not Obezjana…” Kyo contradicted murkily, eye slipping in and out of focus, as his flagging energy reserves were quickly spent. “Petuh, maybe…”

Medved chuckled appreciatively, murmuring something in response that was lost to the ringing in Kyo’s ears. He was swimming in and out of consciousness as Die and Medved set to securing their freedom. Things flashed around him; a startled guard shouting at them, automatic security doors slamming behind them, flashlights and guns coming in and out of sight as they dodged through unfamiliar territory. Once, he saw Medved’s free hand shoot out over Die’s shoulder to grab a guard by the skull and slam him into a wall. Later, he saw another guard approaching them at gunpoint, only to come up short when Die’s blade slipped between his ribs from behind, dead before he even hit the floor. At one point, they were crouched in a tight corner and a hand was clamped over his mouth as the other two held their breath, watching a wandering patrol pass them. What felt like seconds later, they were darting across a wide lawn with only faint moonlight guiding their path.

His own voice screaming out of him brought him back fully at one point, as searing pain flared from his injured leg and slammed through his entire body. He bucked, fighting against what felt like acid being poured over his wounded flesh, only to find that thin arms were holding him tight against a hard chest. Panting raggedly, he registered Medved kneeling over him, holding a bottle of antiseptic in one hand and pinning his leg down with the other. The van they were in hit a bump and Kyo’s head rolled uncontrollably on his neck, lacking the strength to even hold that much up.

“Petuh! Watch how you are driving!” Medved growled.

“Oi! If you think I won’t turn this fucking van around and dump your steroid-addled ass back in the dungeon where I found you, you’re dead wrong. Or I could just shoot you. So just be a good oni and shut the fuck up,” Die shot back irritably. “…And my name is DIE!”

“Whatever. Just watch how you are driving. Petuh.”

When Kyo’s vision steadied, it settled on the face above his, attached to the arms holding him down, and his heart fluttered with desperate hope as he whimpered, “M-… Mas-… Kaoru?”

Kaoru smiled down at him tiredly. “Hello, my bothersome pet.”

“H-hurts…”

“I know it does. Don’t worry, we’re going to get you all fixed up as soon as we get home.”

_‘Home…?’_

Never before had any word sounded so sweet.

With some effort, Kyo managed to uncurl the fingers of his left hand from where they’d maintained a death grip on his collar, offering it to Kaoru shakily. “He… he broke it… I’m sorry…”

Kaoru kissed his forehead. “It’s okay. We’ll get you a new one.”

Medved shifted.

“Hang on, Soroka.”

_‘It’s okay…’_

Kaoru’s arms tightened around him preparation.

“I’ve got you, pet.”

_‘Everything is going to be okay…’_

The bandages around Kyo’s upper arm were unraveled carefully.

_‘Kaoru will make everything better… He-’_

 Antiseptic was poured over his gunshot wound abruptly. Agony flared, and Kyo dropped back into unconsciousness, swallowed by the sound of his own screams and cradled in his master’s warmth.

 

 


	38. Chapter 38

Toshiya, Shinya, and Yoshiki were waiting out in the driveway when they pulled in; standing in front of the small side building that housed the mansion’s security guards’ quarters and the infirmary. Waiting at the ready beside them were the doctor, nurses, and stretcher that Die had called ahead for. In the back of the van, Kaoru and Medved were starting to show subtle signs of worry as Kyo drifted in and out of awareness, murmuring deliriously and lethargically squirming about despite the efforts to keep him still. The fever that Die had noticed back in Soejima’s dungeon was spiking dangerously, and it was well beyond the van’s little med kit’s capacity to do anything more for him.

Die parked as quickly and as gently as he could before flying out of his seat and crossing around to open the side door. The doctor and nurses swarmed around him and between them and Medved, they managed to get Kyo out onto the stretcher, Kaoru climbing out alongside him. Toshiya was on top of Die as soon as he was clear, indiscreetly checking his lover over for injuries and anxiously hissing demands for more information. Shinya and Yoshiki kept their distance, trying to keep out of the way, but both were craning their necks, trying to see into the mess of people to get a better grasp of the situation. Kaoru remained at the side of the stretcher long enough to keep Kyo calm and still while the nurses strapped him down and the doctor worked to ascertain his condition.

The blonde’s left eye rolled behind a fluttering eyelid, focusing blearily on the face above his for a brief moment. “Nnnh… Ne… Kaoru? D’you know your nose is… turns down at the end?”

“Yes, I do know that,” Kaoru replied patiently.

“‘S like you… mmm… pressed it into glass too much as a kid…” Kyo frowned then, looking disjointedly worried. “Were you… looking out or in?”

Kaoru smiled conspiratorially. “I was looking up, cursing the gods. They dropped a stone on me, and it landed right on my nose. It’s been flat ever since.”

Kyo made an odd, almost exasperated face even as he began to drift back out. “Serves you right… stupid master…”

The doctor and the nurses whisked him away then, rushing him towards the infirmary, and Kaoru ran one hand through his hair tiredly as he watched them go. He knew that the medical staff he kept on hand were of the highest caliber, and that the facilities he provided them were extremely well-stocked, but he couldn’t help but worry about his pet. Wounds so deep, left untended in filthy conditions for so long were not easy to treat; it was perfectly possible that infection had spread too far, too fast, and the blonde’s overtaxed system wouldn’t be able to fight it off. If Kyo died, he might have to go back and find out if Soejima survived, just so he could murder him outright. A massive hand dropping onto his shoulder brought his attention back around to the unfamiliar Russian whose presence Die had only half explained earlier. He stared up into cold blue eyes, unwavering, and raised an eyebrow in question.

“You are Kaoru Niikura, yes? Soroka’s ‘master?’”

“I am. And you’re… Medved, if I heard correctly?”

“Yes. I have many things to tell you, but first, I am in need of shower, food, and clothes.”

Kaoru nodded absently, turning his head and calling out, “Shinya?”

Shinya’s head came up from where he was trying to extract details of the night’s adventures from Die, and he crossed the driveway with quick strides. “Yes, Kaoru?”

Kaoru waved a hand at Medved. “Can you show our guest here to the showers in the guardsmen’s house, and see if you can’t scrounge up some clothes for him? I’ll be in my office when he’s done.”

Shinya frowned a little. “Shower, yes. Clothes… maybe. I’m not sure we have anyone your size.”

Medved looked delighted. “‘Shinya?’ Yes, Soroka told me of you, and I see now that he is not lying!”

“Oh?” Shinya asked warily, leading the man towards the side building the doctors and nurses had taken Kyo into. “What did he say?”

“That you are like olen; you look very delicate, but you are strong, not afraid to stab people if you need to. I like this. Is almost impossible to see the knives you are carrying.”

“…Oh. Um… thank you?”

Kaoru swallowed a yawn, resigning himself to a night without sleep. He heard pavement crunching at his side and turned to see Yoshiki approaching him, frowning at Medved and Shinya’s retreating backs. Behind him, Toshiya was helping Die stagger tiredly towards the mansion to get him cleaned up in the redhead’s own quarters.

“Kaoru, do you know who that is?” Yoshiki murmured intently.

“The Russian?” Kaoru shrugged. “Die found him in the dungeon with Kyo, and Kyo wouldn’t settle down until he let him out as well. Why, what do you know?”

“I can’t say for certain, but… I’m pretty sure that’s Kazimir Zakharov. He’s been in the mercenary circuit for almost a decade now; they say he’s got a mouth like a bear trap.”

“Sounds about right…” Kaoru frowned thoughtfully. “Kyo called him Medved… but he’s been calling Kyo ‘Soroka’ and Die ‘Petuh,’ so I suppose it’s possible he isn’t on first-name basis himself.”

Yoshiki gave his younger friend a stern look. “You be careful talking to him. If he is Zakharov, he doesn’t do or give anything for free, and he takes his debts very seriously.”

Kaoru grinned flippantly, starting towards the mansion. “It always amuses me how often you tell me to be careful, nancyboy. Your poncy ass wouldn’t last ten minutes where I come from.”

Yoshiki snorted and followed. “Well, goodness knows you’re so desperately uneducated and unlearned in the finer nuances of delicate conversations, you’ll get all of ten sentences in before you owe the brute your house.”

~*~

“Tanaka,” Kaoru greeted warmly, smiling at the video conference screen on his computer. “It’s been far too long, my friend. How have you been?”

“Well enough, I suppose… and yourself?” Shige Tanaka responded, polite but somewhat wary.

“Busy! Very busy, but good.” Kaoru nodded, shuffling around the papers on his desk.

“…” Soejima’s co-conspirator shifted a bit, looking just the slightest bit unsettled. “What was it you needed from me, Niikura? It’s unusual for you to request meetings out of the blue like this.”

“Ah! I was just hoping you could clear something up for me.” Kaoru smiled to himself, as if enjoying an inside joke. “A rumor, if you will, that came to me… on the tail of a magpie.”

“…I can certainly do my best to oblige you, of course.”

“Oh good. You see, these whispers I heard, they said you had been planning to stab me in the back, if you can believe it. They said you were partnered up with Takashi Soejima – with whom I, as I’m sure you know, have had something of a rocky relationship for a few years now – and that he was going to instigate a war with me so that you could assault my home while my forces were otherwise engaged.”

Tanaka’s face remained carefully blank, but he’d paled just the slightest bit. “That’s… that’s quite a rumor.”

“Isn’t it just?” Kaoru leaned forward, eyes narrowing as his smiled became decidedly predatory. “But I’m having trouble believing that you, with all of your experience and wisdom, would be so foolish as to move against me. Soejima, that I can believe, but wouldn’t you know it… he suffered an unspeakable assault night before last, so I was never able to speak with him about it.”

“…I… I hadn’t heard about that…”

“Oh yes. Quite grisly, from what I’ve been told; his mouth and hands and genitals melted away with some kind of acidic poison. Apparently he stole someone’s property, and they took offense. He survived the attack, but it seems he was quite distraught over the whole thing, and threw himself from the balcony of his hospital room.”

Tanaka looked ill, having trouble maintaining eye contact anymore. “I… I see…”

“So, my good friend, can I assume that these rumors implicating you in a plot against my family are nothing more than vicious gossip?”

“Of… of course.” Tanaka forced a sickly smile. “You and I have never had any quarrels to warrant such conflict, have we?”

“No, we haven’t. And that’s good, because as easy as it would be to crush your meager holdings under my heel, it seems like such a bother and as I’ve said, I’m a very busy man. Particularly now that I’ve accepted the task of assisting Soejima’s replacement in getting settled in to his new position.”

“…Right… How… charitable of you…”

“Oh yes. I can be very charitable when the mood strikes me. And they say I’m an iniquitous man, vengeful even! But then… you know how it is with rumors in this business.”

“…Of course.”

“Well then.” Kaoru sat back a bit, all friendly smiles once more. “I’m so sorry to have wasted your time with such ridiculous questions, but I simply had to be sure.”

“I understand,” Shige murmured, just a bit too hurriedly by the force his relief. “Such things cannot be taken lightly or left to chance.”

“It was nice we could chat like this. We should continue to do so more often in the future. Please, enjoy the rest of your morning.”

Kaoru hit a button on his keyboard to end the conference and relaxed back into his chair with a weary sigh. That went far better than it could have. Tanaka knew that Kaoru was aware of his scheming and would be watching him, but hostilities had, at least for the time being, been avoided. It galled Kaoru a bit, to let the man get away with even as much as he’d managed, but he had to think about what was best for his family, and war with even Tanaka’s weaker forces was not it.

So, that was Tanaka taken care of. After getting Kyo’s message from Medved, he’d spent the past day-and-a-half working with his lieutenants and Yoshiki to get a working plan of action set in place, drawing out their options and weighing the benefits and consequences of each. Their people, city-wide, had to be put on alert and given explicit instructions how to respond should they actually be attacked, as well as reminded that instigating hostilities with other families prematurely would result in severe reprimand. He’d also spent several hours ensuring that he knew and had a very good relationship with the man that would be taking over Soejima’s holdings, though he wasn’t so naïve as to expect that there would be no retribution for his actions. He would simply have to keep one eye open at all times for a while until things settled down again.

Now, finally, he had some free time to go check in on his pet. He hadn’t had time to speak with the doctor, but he’d been told that Kyo’s condition was at least stabilized, and had had to make do with that small assurance while he focused on work. Toshiya and Shinya, having less of a hand in the response to the threat against the organization, had spent a better part of the previous day at the blonde’s beside, but Kyo had slept through the entire day. Shrugging into his suit jacket, Kaoru checked himself briefly in the mirror just inside his office door, and headed off through the mansion, leaving through a back exit and crossing the lawns in a shortcut to the guardsmen’s house. From the entrance, it was a short elevator ride to the top floor that housed the mansion’s medical facilities. He went first to the doctor’s private office, pleased to find the man seated at his desk, working on his computer.

The older man’s eyes came up as his office door clicked shut, and he stood the moment he saw Kaoru, bowing politely. “Mister Niikura.”

“Doctor,” Kaoru greeted, then cut straight to the point. “How is my companion?”

The doctor sighed, sinking back into his chair. “As well as can be expected, considering. His injuries are extensive: bullet wounds to the left arm and right knee; chemical burns to the right eye; deep lacerations on his lip, nostril, and eyebrow; four cracked ribs, two broken; three broken fingers; rectal trauma; a mild concussion; and widespread, severe bruising.

“With the extent of the blunt abdominal trauma, there was concern for a while that he was bleeding internally, but with the infection spreading from his arm, we couldn’t risk exploratory surgery. I was certain we were going to lose him that first night, but we eventually managed to get him stabilized. His knee was an absolute wreck, the patella completely destroyed and pieces of it floating all over the place. Luckily it was clean enough that we were able to get in to clear everything out as best we could, and place a few pins.”

Kaoru nodded sagely, doing his very best to keep his temper in check. It wouldn’t do to kill the messenger, particularly when the messenger was the one keeping his pet alive. One injury in particular confused him, however. “Rectal trauma? You’re certain?” Soejima would never deign to fuck anyone Kaoru already had, not even as part of his sadistic games.

“Yes, sir. He was penetrated, but we didn’t find any traces of semen or spermicide, and the STI panel came back clean. There was some industrial oil and gunpowder residue, so we figure it was a firearm of some kind.”

“I see…”

“He’s down the hall, in Recovery One, if you want to visit him, although he hasn’t woken up yet. I’ll be dropping in to check on him shortly.”

“Aa… Thank you, Doctor.”

Kaoru bowed his head politely and left, heading down to the end of the hall where the small handful of recovery rooms was. He came up short, however, when he heard a familiar soft voice pass through the open door.

“-do you… you know… do what you do?”

Kyo was awake, then? Peering quietly around the corner, Kaoru spotted Medved – folded awkwardly into a too-small chair with his back to the door – and, past him, his troublesome pet. Looking over the blonde, Kaoru understood why Toshiya had looked so upset at dinner the night before, after spending the day watching over him. Kyo had been cleaned up, but he still looked an absolute mess; stitches holding the cuts on his face together, right leg in a massive cast, right eye hidden under a wide bandage, deathly pale under the thick patchwork of bruises staining his skin from head to toe. Lying in the hospital bed, wearing only an over-sized gown that hung loose from his slight frame, he looked small; almost childish. Vulnerable. The sight had made Toshiya sad, and Shinya somber. It made Kaoru angry.

“What, my job?” Medved asked, shrugging. “I am good at it, and I enjoy it. Why else?”

Kyo frowned tiredly over the edge of his pillow. “You enjoy killing people? I thought it was… I don’t know, against your religion or something?”

“Oh yes, is very much against my religion. But, is what my heart has chosen. So I kill only evil people who deserve death, and pray to God for forgiveness every day. Maybe He will give me this, maybe He will not, but I have not wasted my life running from happiness just because what makes me happiest is ‘wrong.’”

“I thought maybe you just did it for the money…”

Medved laughed. “That too. Is good money, when you are so skilled as I am! But, is like they say; do what you love, money will follow, yes?”

Kyo’s mouth twitched into an awkward grin. “I guess so. Still, it’s a bit strange to know that you’re… kind of a sociopath.”

“Do not worry, Soroka. I probably will not kill you or anyone you like.”

“Ah… thanks?”

“Is no problem. What about you? What do you love?”

Kyo didn’t even need to think about it, his lips spreading into a more genuine smile, his voice gone bittersweet with longing. “Music. I don’t really care what I’m doing; if I can be around music, I can be happy. I never really got good enough to make my own, though.”

“Kyo!”

To his credit, Kaoru managed not to visibly jump at the sudden voice calling over his shoulder. In fact, he appeared downright cool as Toshiya flew past him into the room – trailed closely by Shinya, Die, and the doctor – and he followed as if he’d only just arrived himself. Kyo was a little spooked by the sudden crowd, but managed a shaky smile for them. Medved only stood and moved to one side to make room for the over-exuberant bluehaired man, unperturbed. Toshiya fussed for a moment, obviously wanting to hug the younger man but worried about hurting him, and eventually settled for grabbing onto his blankets with one hand and petting his hair and face with the other. Shinya and Die hung back, more sedate – though the latter was grinning broadly – about their delight to see the blonde awake.

“Damn it, Medved! You said you’d call me if he woke up!” Toshiya scolded.

“I did not,” Medved responded coolly. “You said you wanted me to, and I said ‘okay.’ I accepted your want, Pavlin, I did not promise to follow it. Besides, how could I leave sad, little Soroka all alone?”

They had all come to accept that Medved didn’t really call anyone by their names. Toshiya was Pavlin – Peacock – and Shinya was Olen – Deer/Stag – and Die grudgingly accepted Petuh – Rooster – though he got the feeling it had another meaning no one was telling him about. Only Kaoru was called by his last name, and he wondered absently if it was a sign of respect… or dislike. He’d caught the man eyeing him with a patient, considering sort of stare that unsettled him more than he liked to admit.

“Hey, now…” Kyo protested.

“So sad, and so little…” the Russian teased.

“Good to see you’re finally awake. You gave us quite a scare, you know,” the doctor informed him cheerfully, flipping through the clipboard of notes the nurses had been taking for their twice hourly check-ins. “How are you feeling?”

Kyo looked a little unsure, obviously in pain but not wanting to worry anyone by complaining. “Okay, I guess? Hungry… maybe a little sick…”

“Fair enough. I’ll have the nurse bring you some food when we’re done here. Are you alright with everyone being in here for your check-up?”

“…Do I have to undress?”

“No. Not unless you need to show me something?”

Kyo shook his head.

“Alright. I’m going to sit you up, try to relax and let the bed do the work, hmm?” The doctor set the clipboard down and moved around to the head of the bed, stepping on the pedal to very slowly raise Kyo into a more upright position. “About this eye; did it hurt, the last time you had it open?”

“No… I mean, it did for a while after he put… something in it, but it stopped when I rinsed it out.”

“I see. I’m going to uncover it, then, and I want you to tell me if the light causes you any discomfort, okay? If it doesn’t, go ahead and open it up.”

Kyo chewed his lip a little, anxiously, then nodded. “O-… okay…”

The doctor very carefully unwrapped the bandage, pulling out a penlight from his coat pocket. Kyo hesitated a moment; not in pain, but afraid of what he would see – or not see – should he open the damaged eye. He would have to face it eventually, though, so after a few faltering tries, he managed to blink both eyes open. The reactions from the others – Toshiya’s startled expression, Die’s grimace, Kaoru’s scowl, Shinya’s suddenly averted gaze – were not encouraging.

“What? What’s wrong with it?”

“Close your left eye, please… thank you. What do you see?” The doctor asked, drawing his light back and forth over the injured eye.

“N-… not a lot…” Kyo’s face fell a little. “I can sort of see the light moving around, but everything is just a dark blur…” He opened his other eye, anxious. “Why, what does it look like?”

The doctor opened his mouth to speak, but seemed to think the better of it, reaching instead for a small hand mirror tucked away in a nearby drawer. Kyo accepted it, hands shaking just a little. What he saw there, he stared at for a long time, trying to comprehend the significant change in his reflection. His right eye was… gone. The orb itself was still there, and it seemed to move in tandem with its partner still, but the iris and pupil had gone milky, almost perfectly matching the surrounding white.

“…oh…” he managed at length. “You… you can’t fix this… can you?”

It was more a statement than a question, and the doctor’s shaking head did not come as a surprise. “I’m afraid not. Whatever was put into your eye was left there too long; the burns are very severe. Honestly, I’m surprised it’s registering any light at all.”

Kyo nodded, lowering the mirror to his lap and folding his hands carefully on top of it. “I s-… see.”

The agonizing irony of the statement was not lost on him, or anyone else in the room.

“But,” the doctor pressed on, trying to keep things positive, “We’ve got the infection in your arm wound under control, and the cuts on your face were very clean, so they likely won’t scar too badly. You’ll be on bedrest for a bit, but with some physical therapy, you should be up and about in no time.”

Kyo lifted his eyes with painful hope. “So… so, I’ll be able to dance again?”

The doctor looked uncomfortable, pitying. “…I’m sorry.” He grimaced as Kyo’s face crumbled completely, stunned gaze lowering to hide behind his hair. Behind him, someone couldn’t hold back a strained whimper, and someone else was growling, but he pressed on doggedly. “Joints are fragile things. We had to remove the kneecap, and implant several pins to hold together the smaller pieces of your leg bones together while they heal. You’ll be able to walk, but strength of extension in that leg will be permanently lessened.”

There was a long, heavy silence while this information sank in. Shinya bowed his head in quiet remorse, while Die breathed out a curse, pressing one hand over his mouth. Toshiya – knowing perhaps better than all of them what dancing had meant to Kyo – was on the verge of tears. Kaoru looked torn between disappointment and fury, wanting to feel bad for his pet but more predisposed to be angry with those who had hurt him. He was beginning to rethink his mercy towards Tanaka, if only because his hands were itching once more for retribution. Medved only pursed his lips in resignation; he’d already suspected such an outcome, having seen enough of the wound to know that the prognosis was poor.

When Kyo’s shoulders began to shake, no one was entirely sure what it was for. Perhaps he shook with despair, or anger; with tears or restrained fury. It was often hard to guess with him, and both seemed equally valid responses to being told he was effectively hobbled. Toshiya broke the stillness of the room first, aiming to try to comfort the younger man, but he faltered and stopped halfway when a low sound began to spill from Kyo’s lips. It wasn’t sobbing, or growling, or prayer, or any of the other things they were expecting. It was laughter. Cold, bitter, entirely unsettling laughter, and Toshiya found himself taking a step backwards, away from the blonde.

It wasn’t short-lived either. It kept building and building, taking on a hysterically shrill edge, until Kaoru couldn’t take it anymore, stepping forward. “Kyo-”

Kyo’s head came up and the laughter broke into a short scream and glass shattered against the wall behind Kaoru, the water cup missing his master’s head only by the grace of his damaged vision. His gaze was blazing with something wild; a chaotically burning storm of anger, fear, anguish, resentment, and desolation. When he spoke, his voice was soft, but heavy with the force of his acrimony. “What else do I have to lose for you, Kaoru? What else do I have to lose before you’ve had your fill of ruining me?!”

“Ky-”

“SHUT UP! _YOU_ DID THIS TO ME! YOU’VE TAKEN EVERYTHING FROM ME, EVERYTHING! I never did anything to deserve this! I never hurt anyone or stole anything or borrowed money or gambled or did drugs – nothing! I didn’t have a lot, but all of it was mine and I fucking earned it, worked goddamn hard for every tiny piece of happiness I could find, and you TOOK IT ALL AWAY FROM ME!” Kyo was dissolving now, furious tears spilling out over his cheeks. “I’m tired of losing! I’m tired of paying for other people’s sins! I HAVE NOTHING LEFT, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?! YOU TOOK EVERYTHING I HAD, EVERYTHING I AM OR COULD HAVE BEEN, EVERYTHING I COULD HAVE DREAMED OR ASIPRED FOR, AND YOU BROKE IT! I HAVE NOTHING, I have… nothing, I-… I’m nothing… I…”

As his voice trailed off, the room was again left to silence. Shinya, Toshiya, and Die were torn between shock and something like guilt. The happiness – the rare, fragile peace – that had been coloring their lives for the past few months was shattered, and now the ugly, rotting root of the matter was inexorably exposed. This was never supposed to happen. This was never supposed to be how Kyo’s life in their family ended up. And all three of them hated that it had, hated the unadulterated misery in their youngest brother’s voice. Hated that all Kaoru could do was stare at the blonde, unmoving and unspeaking, because he didn’t know how to fix this, and that scared them.

Kyo’s face contorted miserably and he held out one bruised, battered arm to Kaoru, baring his wrist in exhausted resignation. “My wings are broken, Kaoru. I’ll never taste the sky again. All that’s left of me… is my pulse. Are you going to take that from me too?”

 

 


	39. Chapter 39

Kaoru stared at Kyo, his features kept forcibly neutral, lips pressed into a thin line as his teeth sank into his tongue to keep it still, but his sharp eyes were blazing. He felt for his pet, truly he did. The blonde had just spent several days being tortured – punishment for nothing so much as ill-fortune and the regrettable circumstances of simply standing at Kaoru’s side – and come out of it only to find that he would suffer the consequences of those days for the rest of his life. It would take a heart far colder than his own not to feel at least some small pang of sympathy for the younger man.

But Kaoru had a short temper on the best of days, and he had a lot to be frustrated with at the moment. Soejima, for causing this damage, seemingly irreparable even after his death; Kyo, for his rebellion and accusations, wrapped in veracity and pain though they were; _himself_ , for failing to protect his pet, when the boy so thoroughly depended on him; this whole situation, for being so completely out of his control. Worst of all, the one person capable of settling him from this fit into a more rational state was at the center of it, and the knowledge that he was helpless to find peace on his own only served to incite him further. Ire seethed under his skin, chewing away at his sympathy until all he had left was aggravation without hope for reprieve, and all he knew to do was harden himself against the pressure.

And while Kaoru’s expression held a barely-restrained pyre, Kyo’s had gone near-dead with cold acquiescence; unable to reconcile so many conflicting emotions in himself. Between the pain, the lingering trauma from his time with Soejima, and the revelation that he was permanently broken, he couldn’t know what to feel anymore. He was angry, at everyone and everything that contributed to his suffering in any way. Despondency chewed at him, helplessness and hopelessness and loss weighing so heavily on him that it was difficult to breathe. He was terrified of his own chaotic defiance against his master, his stomach quivering nervously under Kaoru’s stare, but still he craved comfort and reassurance from the man even as resentment for all he had been forced to sacrifice burned through his veins. Too much; it was all too much, hitting him all too fast, and he couldn’t seem to find anything to grasp onto to stabilize himself as misery swallowed him, _consumed_ him, with the merciless inevitability of a tar pit.

The others could only stand and watch on, afraid to move, speak, or even breathe audibly for fear of cracking the painful silence. The fragile glass house they’d built for themselves had fallen under siege, and all they could do was stare on in apprehension as cracks spread all around them, threatening to shatter any second – and Kyo and Kaoru were both holding stones. It was a conflict that begged for resolution, but neither party seemed calm or stable enough to back down, and it seemed inevitable that the next word spoken would result in bloodshed. After a long moment of this silence, just before the tension could burst under the strain, it was Medved who broke the stand-off.

“Come now! This was supposed to be happy day of triumph and victory, now we are all upset. Here, I will fix this, and we will all feel well again,” he announced confidently, moving to stand between master and pet.

Everyone looked startled, heads swiveling to regard the near-forgotten stranger. The unspoken question as to why the man was still there in the first place was buried under apprehension for what he might have in mind for this tense moment. But at least Kyo’s desolation and Kaoru temper flagged a bit, momentarily stymied by confusion, and it became a touch easier to breathe.

“Have trust in me, I am good at this… how do you say… ‘conflict managing.’ Here, first, Petuh, you must stand over here.” Medved put his hands on Die’s shoulders and guided him to stand next to Kaoru while the others watched on uncertainly. “Now, this is very important; you must be sure that when you wake up, you remember that I apologized to you, okay?”

Die frowned at him, baffled. “What are you talking ab-”

“I am sorry.”

Before anyone could react – or even figure out what was happening – Die was flying across the room to crash into the wall, leaving a shallow dent and sliding down to the floor limp as a ragdoll. Toshiya cried out in alarm, rushing to his lover’s side and dropping to his knees next to him, followed closely by the doctor. Shinya and Kyo stared on in shock; looking back and forth anxiously between Die and the Russian. Kaoru would very likely have moved against Medved in defense of his friend, had he not found himself trapped against the side wall by a massive hand around his throat and a gun – Die’s, stolen from its holster – cocked and pressed tight against his head.

“Son of a bitch,” Kaoru hissed, snarling.

“What… what are you doing?!” Kyo breathed, horrified.

“Petuh is fine. We are in hospital; is the best place to be punched in the head. Olen! You are very experienced with your knives, yes?” Medved asked, never breaking his gaze on Kaoru’s furious eyes.

“Yes,” Shinya replied warily, one hand already resting on the hilt of a blade.

“Ah, good! Then I do not need to tell you, that there are very few places you can hit me with one which will stop me before I can kill your boss.”

Shinya glared defiantly, and he kept his grip on the weapon, but he knew the man was right.

“What the fuck is this about?” Kaoru seethed, voice thick from the firm constriction on his throat.

“Soroka,” the Russian called, pressing down on his captive’s throat a little harder to keep him silent and ignoring his demand for the moment, “When we were in the prison, you told me of your life in this place, and I asked you if you wished death on your ‘master.’ Do you remember this?”

Kaoru’s eyes narrowed to obsidian slits of fury, fighting to maintain his composure under slight oxygen deprivation and a thoroughly maddening sense of helplessness. Toshiya let out an anxious little sound, and Shinya grit his teeth and growled lowly in impotent frustration.

“Wha-… I-… y-yes?” Kyo stammered, withering entirely from his fit. The gun, his master’s anger, the sight of Die sprawled unconscious on the floor; fear and disbelief flooded his already-taxed psyche into a panicked sort of shut-down. “S-Sort of?”

“You told me that you did not,” Medved reminded him, “That he did not deserve death for what he has done to you, because he treated you kindly and kept you only for need, not cruely. But you are crippled now, and you know that he is to blame, so I will ask; do you still believe this?”

Kyo’s mouth fell open to reply, eyes impossibly wide, but he couldn’t seem to voice an answer. Part of him – fueled by his lingering resentment and anger – was screaming ‘NO,’ demanding reprisal for so much pain, suffering, and violation when it was so easily at hand. Another part of him cringed away from the feel of Toshiya and Shinya’s fearful gazes weighing on him, knowing what Kaoru meant to them and what his loss would do. So many conflicting memories tore at him; a gun against his head, gentle hands bandaging his wounds, the shame of exchanging sex for reprieve from starvation, thin lips smiling fondly before pressing a kiss into his hair, the unbearable constraint of a bark collar, the full and absolute reliance of shibari. The horrible, mind-shattering emptiness of Time Out, and sakura petals dancing in sunlit Kyoto skies. What Kaoru had done to him – the world the man had dragged him into – was _wrong_ and he knew that, but that wasn’t the question. The question was whether or not what Kyo saw as selfishness and a staggering inability to have normal relationships meant the man deserved to have his brains blown out across the wall.

“Little brother…” Toshiya whispered helplessly, terrified. “Little brother, _please_ …”

Abruptly, Kyo remembered the man that had shot him in the arm and chased him from the club, into Soejima’s grasp. He remembered the look on his face as Soejima shot him, remembered the sound he made when he hit the ground, remembered his lifeless form being thrown in a dumpster. Death was a permanent condition with irreparable consequences; stripping a body of all of its meaning and worth, leaving nothing but useless flesh behind, and somehow… somehow he just couldn’t bring himself relegate his master to garbage.

He deflated at the loss of what could have been an easy solution – a pure, unadulterated retribution – and nodded. “Y-… yes, I do.”

“Why are you doing this?” Shinya demanded of Medved.

The Russian shrugged. “Niikura owes Soroka debt of life. For what he has taken, and what Soroka has been through to make sure Niikura knows who is trying to overthrow this family. I have to make sure this debt is paid.”

Shinya pressed on, unconvinced. “But _why?_ You’re a mercenary; your kind doesn’t do anything for free out of the goodness of your heart, especially something as risky as holding the head of a massive criminal organization at gunpoint in the middle of his own territory. What could possibly be in it for you?”

“I also owe Soroka debts,” Medved answered simply. “And friendship is not possible until debt is settled. Now!” He turned his attention back to Kaoru, loosening his grip again so that the man could speak. “Niikura, Soroka does not wish your death, so it would not be very good payment. This means you must pay him with other kind of ‘life.’”

“And what, exactly, would that be?” Kaoru seethed, his voice a venomous rasp.

“The kind you took. Home, job, independence. I will let you do this on your terms, because it is your debt, but you will let Soroka go, you will replace these things, and you will make sure that he can be successful when he is free.”

Kaoru’s eyes went wide, incensed, and his gaze shifted to his pet. Kyo just stared, everything draining out of him until all he could feel was… blank. Sick, shivery static and a twisting coil of lightning in his chest at the word “free,” and he had no way of knowing what it meant. Was this was hope felt like? It seemed appropriate, but… He realized with a start that – with the exception of Medved, who knew better than to take his eyes off of Kaoru for even a second – everyone in the room was staring at him. Toshiya, shocked, clutching Die’s unresponsive hand between his own; Shinya, entirely uncertain, eyes flicking back and forth between the hostage situation and the bed; even the doctor, stunned with his fingers on Die’s other wrist, frozen in the act of taking his pulse. Kaoru’s eyes caught Kyo’s, forcibly stoic, but obviously livid at his own helplessness, and Kyo withered uneasily.

“And if I refuse?” Kaoru gritted out.

Medved leaned in closer, so that no one else could hear him, and murmured, “Then we will do this on _my_ terms. I will take Soroka out of this place, and I will kill everyone who tries to get into my way. This will start with you of course, and next will be your friends over there, and then every dog and guard between this room and the garage. This will not make me happy; Soroka will be sad, so is not so good payment, and I do not believe Pavlin, Olen, or Petuh deserve death today. But I will do it, because I cannot let debt stay on my head.”

Kaoru snarled, and Medved straightened again to meet his gaze. Dark chocolate irises burned with frustration and hatred, clashing against electric blue gone hard with resolution, and it was understood that the debts the Russian perceived were owed to Kyo would be paid on pain of death. Kaoru could only lose in this situation – that much was out of his control – and the only choice he had was exactly how much he was going to lose. Tacit, begrudging acceptance passed between them.

“…Fine,” Kaoru spat bitterly.

“Is good choice you are making,” Medved assured him with a shark’s menacing grin, releasing the grip on his throat. “You are smart man. Do not worry; you have lots of time to think of how you will pay your debt. Soroka and I will stay here until doctor says he can take care of himself again.”

“Awfully bold of you, to stay in my home after this,” Kaoru growled, rubbing his neck. “I’ve killed more important men than you for lesser slights than this.”

“I know. Soroka tells me you are good at keeping your word, and I will trust this, but I will still tell you that killing me is very bad idea.” Medved patted his own chest absently. “Just think of my body as… hmm… _fail-deadly_ , yes? Is not my only back-up in this foolishness, but is my favorite.”

Kaoru’s fists clenched at his sides, and everyone in the room could feel his burning desire to test that claim with messy, hot-blooded murder. But as thoroughly livid as he was, he knew – was unable to ignore – that he couldn’t risk his brothers’ lives for his own pride, and the chance that the Russian was crazy enough to actually be a walking dead-man’s switch was too high. And he had to add to that the knowledge that Medved had had ample time to plan this move out, and that his profession meant he had contacts with innumerable unsavory people throughout the city who could, at will, make Kaoru’s life decidedly problematic. The situation was fully out of his control, so he did the only thing he could think of that didn’t involve getting a lot of people he cared about killed. He turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.

Medved watched him go, then disarmed Die’s gun again and beamed at the horrified gazes currently resting on him, letting the menace slide off of him like water off a duck. “There, see? No one is dead, and we have all reached agreement for solution! Is good conflict managing, yes?”

~*~

Kyo eased himself down, with painstaking care, onto a bench overlooking one of the mansion’s koi ponds, closing his eyes with a long sigh of pleasure as he soaked up the warmth of the midday sun and the beauty of the garden in full summer bloom. He’d spent a full week bound to the hospital bed, and three more confined to a wheelchair before his ribs and arm had finally – _finally_ – mended to the point where the doctor had taken him off of the debilitating pain-killers and graduated him to crutches. They were exhausting, unwieldy things, and he felt horribly feeble as he hobbled about on them, but to actually be moving about under his own power again was nothing short of glorious. It meant, among other things, that he could finally escape the sterile confines of the recovery room he’d been living in and simply breathe.

Though to be fair, the prescription cocktail he’d been on had kept him asleep for most of the past month. Besides antibiotics to fight off his infection and painkillers, they’d had to sedate him for a while to keep him from succumbing to night terrors and post-traumatic fits. At one point, he’d woken in the middle of the night, sick and panicked, unable to escape the feeling of Soejima’s hands on him, and the darkness of the room had tipped him into madness. By the time the orderlies heard his screaming, sobbing fit and run to investigate, he’d managed to reopen every last wound the man had given him. Hours later, Toshiya had visited him and asked him, horrified, why he’d done it. Kyo had simply smiled, hazily through his sedation, and responded that now the wounds – and the scars that they would become – were his own, not something he’d been forced to accept from another man.

Still, he had some idea of how much time had passed and what had gone on while he was out of it. He knew that Toshiya had visited him almost every day, returning the favor he’d been so grateful for when he’d been bedridden. He knew that Shinya and Die dropped in every now and then as well, the former always bringing fresh flowers for the vase at his bedside, the latter simply watching over him as he slept with the same jumble of guilt, relief, and regret bleeding from his gaze. He knew that Medved was always lurking around at night, being a nocturnal sort when he had the choice, and that his presence in one of the spare guardsman’s quarters was cause for great resentment in the household. He knew that Kaoru hadn’t come to visit him since the first time.

That last bit of knowledge unsettled him, more than a little. He had faith in Kaoru’s word; still, he did, truly, he did, because it had been all he had for too long to let go of now. But he also had faith in Kaoru’s vanity, his pride, the lengths he would go to to get what he wanted and keep it. His mas-… the man had risked starting a war with a rival organization for the chance to mutilate the last person to take Kyo away from him. It was hard to believe he was really going to just… let him go, after everything.

Then again, maybe Kaoru hadn’t been angry because he was losing his pet. Glancing down at his reflection in the pond, meeting his own asymmetrical gaze, it occurred to Kyo – not for the first time – that he couldn’t imagine why the man would want to keep him around anymore anyways. Kaoru was a notorious perfectionist; why would he suffer to keep damaged goods when he had the choice of the finest courtesans in the country for his companion? Maybe in the beginning, Kyo had been a worthwhile amusement, but now – hobbled and disfigured – he couldn’t see how he could possibly be what his former master needed anymore. So maybe Kaoru had been so angry before just because it hadn’t been his own choice to get rid of Kyo, not because he thought the blonde was actually worth fighting for.

This should have been the most reassuring answer, because it meant that he was really going to be set free. He wasn’t going to be followed, wasn’t going to be snatched back up the moment Medved’s enforcement of this “payment” was gone, wasn’t going to be leaving a gap in anyone’s life. And wasn’t that what he had wanted for so long?

_‘But if that were true… why would it make me feel so-’_

A hand on his shoulder interrupted his thoughts, and he looked up to find Die standing over him. “Hey, little brother. You ready to go?”

Kyo blinked, head tilting a bit. “Go where?”

“Doc says you’re mobile enough to take care of yourself, so I’m going to take you to your new home. That was the deal, right?”

Kyo flinched a bit at the ill-restrained bitterness in the redhead’s voice, but couldn’t help a hopeful little smile as he climbed back onto his crutches. “You’re going to take me?”

Die’s smile was lopsided, and entirely sad. “Of course. I’m Hermes, remember? The Messenger, conductor of souls to and from the Underworld? Come on. Your stuff has already been loaded up.”

Kyo was shaking as he followed the taller man through the gardens to the driveway, his eyes a little wider than usual and his heart tight in his throat.

_‘It’s… it’s really happening? It’s really… over?’_

_‘I’m going to leave?’_

_‘Going… going to be…_ **_free_ ** _…?’_

It didn’t feel real. He was so sure he was going to wake up any moment and find out this was all just a hallucination or a dream or a cruel trick. Any minute now, this fantasy was going to crumble around him, and he was going to find out he was still in his cell, caught by the demons that lived in the pitch black; or in Soejima’s dungeon, finally broken and cast to madness; or it was really happening, but someone was going to rush him at the last second and drag him back into all of it. But he didn’t wake up, and no one attacked him, and when his hand came to rest on the glossy black frame of the SUV waiting for them, he felt something in his chest constrict. Die was climbing into the driver’s seat, and Medved was in the back, vigilant though half-asleep. The redhead glared at the Russian in the rearview mirror, and the older man spared him a grin.

Everything became a blur. Toshiya came out to bid him farewell, valiantly fighting back tears, hugging him and pulling back to pet his face and hair only to hug him again, apologizing for gods-knew-what and telling him to take care of himself. Kyo felt his mouth moving into something reassuring, but for the life of him, he couldn’t seem to register his own words even as he spoke them. Once Toshiya managed to compose himself enough to let go, Shinya took his place, moving into the same embrace they’d shared once before; foreheads pressed together, arms loose around the smaller man’s shoulders. The auburn-haired man murmured something like wishing him luck before releasing him.

A hand fell to his shoulder for the second time that day, and this time he didn’t need to look even at tattooed fingers to know who it was. Maybe the man’s scent came to him on the wind, maybe he’d felt that touch too many times to ever mistake it for anyone else, or maybe he simply felt the presence at his back and recognized the way it washed over him. Either way, the simple bit of contact brought everything back into sharp relief for a brief moment, and he turned to look up at Kaoru with a terrifying sort of focus. The older man’s free hand extended between them, closed, palm down, and Kyo automatically opened his own to accept its contents. He stared down at the familiar chain, flawlessly intact once more, and the undecorated padlock clasp at the end. No spider. No claim. No ownership.

“I did promise you a new one,” Kaoru pointed out, his voice as inscrutable as his stare. “You fought so hard for it, after all.”

Kyo didn’t know how to think or feel about the gift, and before he could find a response, the man was helping him into the vehicle and the blur resumed. Time warped and shifted around him, coming at him in slow motion then passing him rapidly, until an hour turned into both a minute and a day. The world seemed to move around him, disconnected, and though he distantly registered things – the scenery passing around them, Die and Medved’s snippy exchanges over stupid things like windows and the radio station – none of it really touched him. Surreality overtook him and if he cared to look back on this day, he would only recall sitting in the garden, then being handed his chain, then stepping out of an elevator to the top floor of a complex into his new home.

Kyo stared about himself then, stunned. The place was incredible; a huge layout that flowed gracefully from one room to the next, clean and well-lit, with an austere sense of dignity and pristine newness that Kyo had never experienced in any of his previous homes. Everything felt very modern, but held an underlying emphasis on comfort and elegance. Crossing to a massive window, he looked out over the city in awed wonder.

“It’s all in your name,” Die explained, moving to a small box that had been left on the dining table and pulling out a thick file folder. “Here are your keys and a copy of the lease agreement. You don’t need to worry about rent or utilities or any of that. We set up a bank account for you with a stipend to tide you over until you’ve healed up enough to find a job. Toshiya put together a list of places you can go to for work if you have trouble.

 “This is your ID, your bank card, your checkbook. If you decide to take a job outside the family, we made up a work history for you for the time you lived with us, and someone will be on hand to give referrals if you need them. Totchi insisted we get you a cellphone, so here’s that – it has his, mine, and Shinya’s numbers already in it if you need us for anything. Doc’s number is in here too, but he’ll be visiting you here for physical therapy until you’re healed up.”

Kyo just stared at him for a long time, dumbstruck. When he finally managed to speak, his voice was soft, unsteady. “Die, I… I wasn’t expecting… I-I mean, this… this is so much more than I had, I…”

“I told you we’d take care of you no matter how things ended, didn’t I?” Die shrugged, scratching the back of his head uncomfortably. “We all want you to be happy and… well, Kao refused to pay for the place you used to live in. Said it wasn’t good enough. You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to, but it’s yours as long as you need it. I hope this is enough to settle Kaoru’s ‘debt’?”

The last was directed at Medved, who had been exploring the space as the younger two spoke, and he nodded appreciatively. “Oh yes. I should try to get life debt from Niikura, if this is how he will pay them!”

Die snorted derisively. “If this was for you, it’d be a motel room in the slums and there’d be scorpions in the bed just for good measure. We like Kyo, _you’re_ a bastard.”

Medved only grinned in response, amused by the thought.

Die shook his head and turned back to Kyo, giving a half-smile. “I guess I’ll… leave you to it? I know you probably want to enjoy… ‘being outside’ without me hovering so just… you know… call us if you need anything, okay?” He got a hesitant nod in return and moved to the doorway, never comfortable with goodbyes. He paused though, hand over the knob, and glanced back just long enough to add, “I hope… I hope you can remember us at least a little fondly. We never meant-… It wasn’t supposed to-… We’ll miss you, little brother.”

And then Die was gone.

Medved came over to him then, ruffling his hair and beaming down at him. “I will go also. Will be nice to be in my own home again. I will come back to check on you and make sure Niikura is staying good to his word.” He picked up the phone Die had left on the table and dialed in his own number, saving it to the device. “I still owe you debt, so you will call me if you need something, and I will come. I hope you will be happy, Soroka.”

The door clicked shut once more, and Kyo was alone – completely and utterly alone – for the first time since all of this had begun. Unsure of what to do with himself, feeling out of place, he moved slowly through the apartment, running his eyes and his hands over every surface, every appliance, every piece of furniture, trying to reconcile himself to the idea of all of it being _his_. He looked over the pile of paperwork, the cellphone, and the keys that Die had left him; simple, unassuming artifacts that described his new life. When he reached the bedroom, he found a second cardboard box sitting innocuously in the center of the bed and opened it with unsteady hands.

A handheld video game system. An electronic book reader. A portable music player. A mask of the top half of a devil’s face. A bracelet of ornate spheres and loops with a long, trailing tail. A pair of thick-rimmed reading glasses. A battered notebook, some pages missing, all the rest covered in scrawling handwriting and scribbled drawings. A long band of black silk.

_‘Today is… June 10 th…’_

_‘It’s been 245 days… eight months …’_

_‘And I am… free?’_

Looking down at the chain still clutched in his left hand, all the emotional upheaval he should have been feeling all day finally caught up to him. His stomach dropped as if in free fall and he found himself staggering dizzily to the bathroom, all but falling off his crutches once inside. Dropping painfully to one knee, the other held gracelessly out to one side in its cast, he grabbed onto the toilet bowl with both hands and panted once, then vomited. Distantly, he was aware of the tears streaking over his cheeks.  

 

 


	40. Chapter 40

The clock flicked once, its glowing blue digits rearranging themselves silently to read 6:00 AM, and the figure on the bed began to stir. By six-thirty, Kyo’s eyes opened to stare blankly at the ceiling, vague thoughts of sleeping in dancing just behind the vacant gaze. At seven, a hand reached out to turn on the radio, turned down very low. Mismatched eyes drifted shut, their owner allowing his mind to drift, soaking in the music until his pulse synched up with the beat. This was, without exception, the most peaceful part of his daily routine. At eight o’clock, he turned the music off, and the familiar weight of loneliness began to set in with the silence.

_[Summer came and went. Kyo felt broken, and spent the vast majority of his days with the doctor, working on his physical therapy to rebuild the strength in his leg. As predicted, he never did regain full use of the limb, but he certainly came as close as he possibly could, pushing himself to the absolute limit of what the doctor recommended, never once past it. He still walked with a cane, but he used it more for balance than actual support anymore, resting on it only when the joint began to ache or weaken over the course of the day. Bones mended, wounds healed into near-invisible scars, and as days passed into weeks, and weeks into months, bandages and braces and pain became less and less part of his life. Eventually, he got to the point where he was as healed as he was ever going to be, and the doctor stopped visiting. Still, he felt broken.]_

He got up and went to the kitchen to make breakfast; a variety of light, cooked foods and cut-up portions of fresh fruits, transferring the entire array to a low, heavy table near an east-facing window. When a bundle of long, luxurious black and grey fur with big green eyes and a kinked up tail started following him with increasingly loud, insistent mewls, he opened a can of cat food and emptied it into a ceramic bowl on the floor by the table. The noisy feline he called Badger settled down in front of her bowl with an imperious air of satisfaction, purring as she ate her breakfast. Kyo picked at his own meal languidly, eating small bites from each plate at random, more of his attention focused on the small fountain in front of the window and the way it scattered the light from the morning sun, the way it tinkled and burbled so cheerfully. By eight-forty-five his motions slowed almost to a stop, and at nine, he stood from the table.

_[In the fall, Kyo began to feel worthless. He called on the contacts Toshiya had provided him, and they periodically contacted him in for small jobs. They were always once-off gigs; he was asked once or twice to deliver messages or small packages, or to help train new dancers, but usually he was called on to sing in clubs and bars, and those were his favorite days. Not knowing what he wanted to do – or what he should do, or what he was even capable of doing – and being somewhat cowed by the prospect of the interview process, he never attempted to find himself proper work. He lived very simply, and had been provided enough money to start with that he rarely found himself short on funds, so it was never a dire issue. But they always called him, not the other way around, and when his phone was silent, so was he. Still, he felt worthless.]_

He packed up the food he hadn’t eaten, storing it in the fridge for later before cleaning up the mess he’d made cooking. From there, it was back to the bedroom to get dressed, and Badger followed him with her crooked tail held high, twining between his ankles in either a vie for attention or an attempt on his life. For over half an hour, he stared blankly into his wardrobe, absently fingering the chain and padlock hanging at his collarbone as he considered. He eventually settled on a simple, low-key outfit of black jeans and a red tee-shirt with a subtle black spider design creeping over one shoulder. The next stop was the bathroom, to clean up a bit, arrange messy black hair into some semblance of order, and begrudgingly slip on his eye patch. He hated the thing – it was itchy and put an irritating pressure on his mostly-blind eye – but he couldn’t stand the way people stared at him when he didn’t wear it.

_[In the winter, in an attempt to fight a sense of disconnection from the rest of the world, Kyo took to spending his time in a bar near his home that catered primarily to gay men. He never could bring himself to approach anyone though, simply settling himself into a darker corner and nursing a single glass of rum and coke for hours on end. Periodically, men would try to speak to him; all manner of personalities engaging in all manner of flirting, all getting the same vague replies in the same soft, apprehensive voice and taking it as disinterest, moving on quickly to more receptive potentials. Once or twice, however, men would come along who spoke and held themselves with a certain sort of authoritative confidence, and he found himself responding almost in spite of himself._

_He went home with these men, seeking to strengthen the tenuous links to society they represented, even if being in their company made him feel ill at ease. Every one of them, though, turned into domineering, almost abusive partners once behind closed doors. One had panted all manner of cruel, demeaning names into his ear while holding him pinned against the wall, feeling him up. Kyo managed to stick it out until the man called him a whore, before the combination of unfamiliar hands and hurtful words sickened him too much to bear. Another preferred to inflict more physical mistreatment, thinking him a full-blown masochist, and he tolerated that even less. He gained something of a reputation – the kindest rumors calling him a cocktease; the cruelest, certifiable – until people stopped approaching to him at all and eventually, he just stopped going to the bar. Still, he felt disconnected.]_

A final sweep through the apartment to collect his wallet, phone, and keys, pause at the door to pull on his long jacket and shoes, give the cat one last skritch under the chin in farewell, and he stepped out of his home and onto the elevator. Halfway down, someone else got on, so he got off and waited for it to pass before pressing the down button again, humming to himself quietly while the car finished its trip to the ground floor and came back for him. On the street, he looked first left, then right, then settled for left simply because it looked less crowded. Doing his level best to avoid notice, and to ignore it when it inevitably fell on him, he resumed his search for something – anything – or someone – anyone – that might hold the cure to his ever-present discontent; the insidious restlessness that colored his days.

_[In the spring, demoralized by a pervasive feeling of vulnerability, he called on Medved for help. In response, the Russian spent a great deal of time paying back his presumed debts by leading Kyo through a daily regimen of strengthening exercises. He lost the lean, almost androgynous build of a dancer and began to take on a more masculine shape, an indefinable power settling in underneath his graceful motions. After a while of this, Medved presented him with the cane he used now; a beautifully-balanced length of ebony, lacquered to a high shine and topped with a simple but elegant silver knob for a handle._

_Then he taught Kyo how to fight with it._

_Kyo was a touch uncertain about the insistence for self-defense training, maintaining his distaste for violence, but being stuck in a padded warehouse room that local mercenaries used for sparring, with a man more than twice his size charging him like a blue-eyed bull on a rampage, was a strong motivator. They met and trained every day for months, until Kyo managed to knock Medved on his ass, and the Russian proudly announced that he had nothing else to teach so long as Kyo was small and refused to hold a gun. Still, he felt vulnerable.]_

After a few hours of fruitless wandering, Kyo’s leg began to bother him, and his gaze fell downcast as he followed the familiar path to the small park a short distance from his home. He found a secluded bench near the playground and settled onto it, unobtrusively observing people around him with a wistful eye. He watched happy couples strolling and holding hands, listened to the bird-flock squeals of children playing, and tried to figure out why he still felt so detached from all of it. Tried to think of what it was he had to do in order to feel human again; to be a functioning part of society. These days with nothing and no one to occupy him were always the worst, and they were becoming more and more frequent, more devastating as time went on. Something – almost like… guilt? Remorse? – was always holding him back and he didn’t know how to get past it to reconnect with life outside his apartment.

_[Aching for belonging, Kyo called his parents. He hadn’t spoken to them in years, but he knew the old phone number would still work. He thought maybe they’d heard he’d gone missing and were wondering about him. His father answered, and Kyo somewhat uncertainly explained that he just wanted to let them know he was okay; that he’d gotten himself into a bit of trouble for a while, but he was getting his life back together now. Silence filled the line for a moment before he tried again, hesitantly admitting that he missed them, and asking if he could come home to visit some time. He heard his mother’s voice in the background, wondering who was calling, and his father responded ‘no one’ before hanging up the phone. He felt like he didn’t belong anywhere anymore.]_

At three-thirty, Kyo reluctantly stood and left his bench to start the walk back home. At a listless pace, he made it back to the building with ten minutes to spare, but the elevator proved a greater challenge than usual. People kept getting on and he kept having to get off and wait for them to leave before calling it back, only to find that someone else was already there and letting it pass again. Anxiety flared in his chest as minutes ticked by, and he wound up climbing the last two floors on the stairs in a rush, all-but flinging himself through the door just as the clock ticked around to four o’clock. He leaned back against the panel, one hand over his pounding heart, and fought to calm himself back down.

_‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’_

_‘Getting all worked up over nothing.’_

_[Feeling stagnant, Kyo tried on many occasions to break himself of his habits and routines. He tried to eat lunch on days other than Saturday, and found that he couldn’t stomach anything past the first few bites. He tried to clean less fastidiously, leaving his bed unmade and dishes unwashed and clothes on the floor. It lasted for all of an hour before the nagging awareness that his home was messy – imperfect and unworthy – finally drove him mad and he scrambled to clean up. He tried to sleep in, but couldn’t keep his eyes closed; tried to stay out all evening rather than returning at four and leaving after dinner, and found himself in a hysterical panic by four-fifteen. The routine and the habits were deeply comforting, giving him the structure and certainty he could find nowhere else, and so he found himself unwilling and unable to remove himself from them. Still, he felt stagnant.]_

Berating himself silently, he peeled the hated eye patch off and settled down on the couch. Badger was stretched across his lap in half a heartbeat, yowling and looking up at him expectantly, and he picked a comb up off the side table. She quieted down to a deep, raspy purr as he began the nightly task of tending her fur. A disjointed sense of something like uselessness or emptiness surfaced as he worked, and he did his level best to ignore it as it joined the sickening mass loneliness and restlessness had grown into over the course of the day. Around five o’clock, the cat got tired of his attention and wandered off, so he read until six, when he stirred again to make himself and her dinner, and eating once more in silence at the low table.

_[When summer came around again, Kyo fought a growing sense of discontent with his own appearance, and sought to change himself. Toshiya gave him the name and number of a nearby tattoo artist who, upon hearing who had referred Kyo to him, offered to work on him for next to nothing. He quickly became addicted to the needle; coming to crave the pain, the beauty, and the trance-like state he fell into on the table, until he was coming in every week for as long as the man could see him. He despaired his own fate, though he never spoke of it, and labeled himself Damned. He sought strength and rebirth; he got a tiger and a phoenix etched into his skin. His old blue butterfly unsettled him, but he didn’t want it covered, so he obscured it in writhing vines of darkness. He craved compassion, so Senju Kannon’s many arms now stretched across the entire expanse of his back, the merciful bodhisattva’s elegant form rendered in delicate golden lines. Still, he felt discontent.]_

Halfway through his meal, the oppressive solitude of his home gripped him by the heart and he faltered, several fat tears and half of a sob escaping him before he could get himself back together. At eight-thirty, he gave up on dinner and packed up his leftovers, cleaning up his mess before retreating back to his bedroom. At nine, he went to take a ten-minute shower, shaved, and dealt with his teeth and hair again. He only went out on Friday nights, if he went out at all, so he simply changed into a pair of loose-fitting pajama pants and settled into his bed, leaving his cane propped up against the nightstand. Badger hopped up after him, stretching out across the other pillow, and he reached out a hand to thread through her fur. He wanted – so badly it almost hurt – to pull her close; to wrap himself around her living, breathing warmth and feel less alone, but he knew if he tried, she would only squirm away, settling out of reach to groom herself while leveling him with a reproachful look, so he contented himself with this simple touch. He lay there, curled up and doing his absolute damndest to swallow down the lump of despair in his throat, until ten, when his eyes finally started to drift shut. By ten-thirty, he was asleep, and another day was finally over.

~*~

 _-“you ever want something more out of life?”-_ **_-[Kaoru is my purpose_ ** _**]-** _ _-“Such a good boy”-  -“yours, Master, always yours, only yours”-_ _-“_ _want is rarely – if ever – what you need”-                   -“keep him happy for us!”-  -“you’re really quite beautiful like this”-    -“take care of this ego-maniacal street punk for me”-_

Kyo’s eyes snapped open, a strangled gasp sucking in past his lips. At first, he didn’t know what had woken him. The room was dark and still, and it was only just past five in the morning. But he felt… vulnerable, somehow – raw, as if he’d been mentally flayed. Something had ripped open the festering, cancerous corner of his mind he kept those memories in and sent them splashing, like burning poison, across his psyche in a jumbled mess.

 _-“life is defined solely by what you are to me”-              -‘so much better, when he’s happy’-_ **_-[addicted to this fate He’s spun for me]-_ ** **** _-“don’t think anyone else is worth having you”-    -“need your help making the boss happy. You’re the only one who can”-         -“not going anywhere, dear pet. How could I, when you look so damned beautiful?”-_

Then it hit him. The sound of rain pelting against his windows and roof. The sound of wind howling. The alteration of pressure that made his knee ache and the shivering feel of raw energy in the air, working to pull his mind loose from its moorings.

 _-‘takes care of me’-            -“ **become the flower that blooms again** ”-        -‘almost as if… as if He… cares…?’-      -“a most profound, one-sided love”-         -“his happiness is your happiness; his pain is your pain”-  -“good boy”-  -‘this place is where I am meant to be'-             -‘needs me to keep Him happy’-     _ **_-[this travesty of love between us… my destiny]-_ **

A flash of white light through his windows confirmed his fear, and he had just enough time to utter a faint whimper before his entire world began to rumble, and his mind split a little further under the force of the storm’s booming voice. He couldn’t sleep, not like this, so he wouldn’t dream as he rode this tempest unsecured, pitching past fantasy and into the darker recesses of his head. Whispers he didn’t want to hear, prophesies he didn’t want to know, clarity so sharp his soul began to bleed; it all washed over him in a rush, and his own frantic grasping for stability only served to deepen the tears.

 _-“won’t let you fall”-           -“the best companion Kao’s had. He’s been so damn happy lately”-                -‘just want… to be **happy** …’-         -“merry Christmas, Kyo.”-             -“make me damn proud to call myself your master”-          _ _-“will not have wasted my life from happiness just because what makes me happiest is ‘wrong’”-_

“Oh no…” he breathed helplessly. “No, no, no, not this… I can’t…”

It was too late. His mind was already flying into the swirling mess of questions he couldn’t answer and hurt he couldn’t sooth with nothing to anchor him, no one to keep him safe and his entire body hurt for want of human contact. Lightning flashed again, thunder following hot on its trail. Tears streaked unheeded over his cheeks in an unending torrent as he flew out of his bed and scrambled for something – anything – that might alleviate his ache. He felt silk and grabbed onto it.

 _-new butterfly basked in the warm sun, and the spider was pleased-_ - _‘everything is okay, because He’s happy’-_ _-“this is your home now.”-            -“we all become just who we are meant to be”-_ _-‘_ _not sure I know how_ **not** _to be His anymore’-_ ** _-[_** _ **my**_ ** _master,_** _ **my**_ ** _keeper,_** _ **my**_ ** _spider,_** _ **my**_ ** _god,_** _ **my**_ ** _devil]-_** _-“I’ve got you, pet.”-_

He didn’t understand why he was so unhappy. He didn’t understand why he always felt alone and anxious and worthless, why he couldn’t break away from his past to live his life. The memories spilling over him gave a bitter edge to his suffering and he fought to push them back down to a place where they could stop hurting and confusing him, but they continued to pour, like blood through fingers pressed over a gaping wound. He just wanted to move on, but something always dragged him back.

_-“destroys every life he touches, but if you can make it past the initial shock… if you can look past the darkness, he replaces it with something so much better… something **wonderful** ”-     _

He couldn’t take it. Not now, not any more, not again; he had to do something. An idea presented itself, surfacing from the roiling frenzy of distress his head had become, and he grasped onto it desperately. He grabbed his cane, threw on his jacket, and rushed out of his apartment, scrambling in his coat pocket for his phone. What he had in mind was reckless and stupid, and he knew it, and part of him hoped Medved would answer his summons just to kick his ass for even considering it, then present him with some more rational, less outrageously dangerous solution.

_-‘He’s… warm…’-_

~*~

Kyo moved through once-familiar halls, driven by little more than a frantic sort of resolution. The storm, it seemed, was riding on a wind at his back, and even coming this far out of the city had not allowed him to escape its pull. He fought it. He was here, and come hell or high water, he was going to get what he needed to live his life. When he reached the top of the stairs and the heavy door to his destination, one of the men guarding it moved to stop him, but the other shook his head once to halt his partner, curiously watching the smaller man blow past them into the depths of the master suite.

Kyo made it halfway down the hall before something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye, gripping him by the heart and forcing him to a stop so sudden he almost fell over. There, mounted on the wall, easily a full meter across, was a blown up black and white photograph. Of _him_ ; hanging – blindfolded, arms bound behind his back, legs half-curled at just the right angle to obscure his genitals – suspended in a massive spiderweb. The black ropes making up the web were almost invisible against the background, the dark purple of the walls in the shibari room turned near-black in the monochromatic format, so Kyo’s pale hair and skin stood out in sharp relief, contrasting with the dark bindings arranged so artfully around him. It was phenomenally crisp for its size; one could make out every bead of sweat on his skin, the tense line of every muscle, the subtle parting of his lips as he panted. It was… beautiful, somehow, and it shocked him to see it hanging so proudly where anyone could see it.

“Gods…” he breathed, stricken. He almost couldn’t even recognize himself. There was a soft click at the end of the hall, faint and unassuming, but it brought his head snapping around, wide-eyed and petrified with nerves.

Even after all this time, the effect Kaoru’s mere presence had on him was overwhelming, and he felt his mind shatter into panic-stricken static. The man had hardly changed; immaculate as ever, though his features perhaps a bit more weary than Kyo remembered as he stared at his unexpected visitor with muted surprise. It occurred to Kyo all of a sudden that he probably looked like a mental patient, wearing nothing but pajama pants under his jacket, barefoot, and absolutely drenched with rainwater. He looked down at himself, at the puddle forming under him, and back down the hall, at the trail of blood-and-water footprints he’d left. Apparently at some point, he’d cut his left foot. Looking back at Kaoru, he opened his mouth, but found that all the words he’d struggled to gather the whole trip over had fled him. After a few fruitless attempts, he snapped his mouth shut and just stared.

“Kyo,” Kaoru greeted, carefully. “…Good morning. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I… I need to talk to you,” Kyo managed breathlessly. Kaoru’s voice made his heart twist fiercely.

Kaoru still looked perplexed, but simply gestured to the door leading to the tea room. “I was just on my way to breakfast. Join me.”

Kyo stared as the man continued into the familiar room, and his legs moved of their own volition to follow. Kaoru indicated one of the cushions opposite his usual spot and Kyo settled onto it. Everything was just as he remembered it – though he’d never actually sat on this side of the table, so the perspective was a bit off, and he was almost certain Kaoru never used to take beer with his breakfast – and the weight of too many memories crashing into him at once almost undid him entirely. Thunder crashed outside and for one brief, terrifying moment, Kyo truly believed something in his chest had been torn; that he would look down and find a gaping wound or the end of a bloody blade piercing his flesh. Kaoru sat across from him and folded both hands around his coffee mug, taking a delicate sip of it before turning his full attention on the younger man.

“So-” he started.

“I need you to let me go,” Kyo interrupted, finally catching the errant thought he’d come here with and grasping onto it like a lifeline.

“…How’s that? I was under the impression I had done so already.” Kaoru’s voice went a little bitter. “That mad Russian you brought home with you saw to it, as I recall.”

Kyo fisted his hands in his pant legs, shoulders hunching anxiously. “That’s just it. You set me free with a gun to your head, and I can’t help but feel like I didn’t-… you and I-… it didn’t… end. There was no closure, and I need…” his gaze flicked up to meet his former master’s, forlorn, “I need you to tell me you don’t need me anymore.”

“Is that so? …Hmm…” Kaoru hummed thoughtfully, taking a slow drink of his coffee as he considered the request. Swallowing, he gave the younger man a smile that bordered on apologetic, and replied simply, “No, I don’t think I can do that.”

Kyo jerked back a bit, startled. He hadn’t been expecting that. He’d been almost sure Kaoru would laugh in his face; tell him of course he didn’t need him, how could he be so stupid as to ever imagine otherwise? In a way, part of him needed it, needed Kaoru to hurt him. But he remembered, Kaoru could be terribly obstinate – particularly in the morning – and was not one to succumb to demands or orders. He’d just asked improperly; he knew better. “P-please?”

Kaoru chuckled a bit and shook his head. “I didn’t refuse because you weren’t polite enough.”

“What? Th-… Then why-…?” Kyo trailed off, helplessly confused.

“Because I don’t need any more sins on my conscious. I have more than enough undesirable qualities as it is, and I’d really rather not add ‘liar’ to that list.”

Apparently feeling the matter settled, Kaoru set his mug down and set about eating his breakfast with his usual deliberate motions. Kyo pressed on though, almost frantic. “But you can’t-… I’m not-… that doesn’t make any sense!”

“How’s that?”

“Because I’m broken, Kaoru! I’m crippled and I’m disfigured and I can’t be what you need anymore,” Kyo insisted, bordering on hysteria as he pointed to the hallway where that haunting picture hung. “I can’t be that person anymore, you know that; it’s the only reason you let Medved do what he did! And I know you have at least a dozen courtesans in this house right now that would fall all over themselves to be your companion. I don’t need the apartment or the money or any of it; I just need you to tell me you don’t need me so I can move on with my life!”

“‘Broken?’” Kaoru wondered. “I’m not sure I believe that. Maybe you can’t dance anymore, but you seem to be getting around just fine, so I don’t think I would really call you ‘crippled.’ Your face healed up nicely and your eyes are a touch mismatched, but certainly not unattractive, so I’m not sure what about you is meant to be ‘disfigured’ either. Your mouth doesn’t seem to have taken any damage, and that’s most of what I needed you for, so I don’t see why it’s unreasonable that I still do.” Pausing to think back on his words, he quirked a slight grin. “That was meant to be far less lewd than it probably sounded.”

Kyo slammed his hands down on the table, frustration flaring. “This isn’t a joke!”

Kaoru’s eyes narrowed and one hand shot out, grabbing Kyo by the wrist and dragging his arm across the table even as his other hand shoved the sleeve of the smaller man’s jacket up over his elbow. Kyo yelped and tried to pull away, tried to cover his shame, but it was too late. The damage had been done. Kaoru had seen the damning length of black silk wound clumsily around his forearm; the blindfold he’d clung so desperately to following their shibari sessions so long ago, the relic of security he’d latched onto when the thunderstorm tore him open inside. Kaoru stared him down intently, leaning across the table and holding his arm firmly stretched between them, speaking sternly.

“No, it’s not a joke. I’ve taken at least a dozen courtesans as companions since you left, and every one of them has been nothing more than a vapid, simpering _fuckhole_ interested only in my money and my power. They were tolerable before, but after having you, I can’t see them as anything other than insufferable nuisances. I let that bastard take you away from me because he was right; I did owe you, just not for the reasons he thought. You are part of my family, Kyo; my responsibility. Do you understand? You are mine to care for and protect, and I failed to do so. Soejima hurt you on my watch and for that I am sorry, because you never deserved it. I let you go as penance for that failure, not because I don’t need you.”

“K-…Kaoru…” Kyo whispered, shaking. “Please… I-I can’t…”

Kaoru’s voice gentled just a shade. “I was willing to let it stand, if only because I’ve come to dislike seeing you as miserable as you were when we brought you home. I can’t enjoy keeping you when you’re like that. But obviously freedom hasn’t made you happy, so I have to think maybe you came here because you need something else, and you simply don’t know how to ask for it.”

Kyo paled, shaking his head frantically. “You don’t mean-… I-I can’t! What happened before… what we-… it’s not right! I need to be free, I need-… it’s wrong, Kaoru…”

Kaoru reached up and put his free hand against Kyo’s cheek, feeling a powerful shudder ripple through the younger man’s tense form at the light touch as he searched the asymmetrical gaze. “And what was so wrong about it? You seemed content enough to me, before you were taken.”

“I told you! You ruined my life, you took everything I had and-”

“And what did you have that you don’t have here? A home? A job? Family? You have a life here, and I daresay it’s a damn sight worthier of you than the one you had before.”

Thunder rumbled through them again, and Kyo choked back a sob, his voice wavering and accusatory. “You don’t love me.”

“No, I don’t. And I will never intentionally mislead you into thinking I do, or expect you to love me, because love implies an equality you and I can never have. But I do… care for you.”

It couldn’t have been an easy admission, but Kyo couldn’t think on that at the moment, taking comfort from the hand collecting his tears even as he begged, “Then why can’t you just tell me what I need to hear?”

Kaoru gave a small, wry smile. “Because it’d be a lie and we both know it won’t make you happy.”

“You’re so selfish…”

“Yes, I am. And you’re decidedly selfless, so I fail to see what’s so wrong about our arrangement.”

Kaoru finally released his grip on Kyo’s wrist and sat back, watching the younger man shrink in on himself, both hands folding over his quivering mouth. Kyo knew – _knew_ , beyond a shadow of a doubt – somewhere in the back of his mind that what he and Kaoru had was nothing but a grotesque perversion of a relationship. But he also knew that he’d been in the man’s dark underworld so long, the light of the world outside burned and blinded him viciously and he couldn’t seem to readjust to it. He’d come to rely so completely on the man he both deified and demonized and, somehow, the perversion he was offering – the promises to take care of him, to always be honest even when honesty broke his heart, to need him – was so much more than he’d ever been offered before. He felt the poisonous words spreading through his veins and trembled against them.

Hands slid over his shoulders, catching at the front of his jacket and beginning to tug it off, and he jumped as if scalded. He hadn’t heard Kaoru move. “Wh-what are-…?”

“You’re going blue around the edges. You’ll get sick, sitting around in wet clothes.”

Kyo watched over his shoulder, dazed and helplessly torn, as the older man peeled the sodden garment from him and set it aside. Kaoru traced a curious hand over newly-decorated skin, and he had no way of knowing if it was the man’s warmth against his own cold flesh or the startling intimacy of the gesture that set a fresh wave of shivers washing over him. Kaoru only shook his head a bit and wrapped a familiar plush throw blanket around him. He clutched the cover to himself, lowering his gaze again, and when an arm slid around his waist, he found himself leaning into the half-embrace instinctively, entirely in spite of himself.

“It’s… it’s not right…” he whispered; one last hopeless denial.

“Maybe not. But it’s ours – yours and mine – and what has been done, what we’ve become, cannot be undone.” Kaoru’s voice lowered then, taking on a tone that teetered precariously between order and request in a way that nothing he’d ever said before had. “ _Stay_ , Kyo.”

Kyo closed his eyes, and knew then that he was lost. He would never not need this man and this place and this life; he’d been pulled free of the spider’s web only to find he didn’t know how to fly on his own. The parts of him that were capable of any other existence were dead and rotted to ash. And somehow, when he began weeping, it was equal parts mourning and relief, and he never felt freer as the web closed in on him once again. He couldn’t leave Kaoru; not if the man truly needed him. There was a soft shifting of the body beside him, before Kyo felt a cluster of something cool and smooth touch his lips, smelled Kaoru’s cologne mixed with a fresh, red sort of smell. He opened his eyes again – desperate, pleading – and met that intent dark-chocolate gaze – reassuring, confident – and understanding passed between them.

Kyo parted his lips and accepted the offering, biting down to let the bittersweet blood of the pomegranate seeds slide down his throat.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I typically keep my notes to a small paragraph at the end of the final chapter, but this thing has been such a massive undertaking, I felt it needed a little something more. Over the course of this beast, a lot of little details were taken out because they didn’t have that much effect on plot and it was long enough as it was, but I still consider them to be true. Here are a couple of them off the top of my head.
> 
> Kazimir “Medved” Zakharov:  
> •Medved was born January 17th, and he is 38 as of the final chapter.  
> •He had his teeth ground down to points on a drunken whim when he was 19, after seeing a television special on African warriors that did it.  
> •He prefers whiskey, and will put up a great fussy fit of offense if people offer him vodka just because he's Russian.  
> •Due to an incident interrupting his and Yeva’s wedding – wherein his uncle started a fight with her father and cut off the priest before he could get to the “’til death do you part” and “as long as you both shall live” bits – he remains celibate and single following her death to adhere to his vows. 
> 
> Badger :  
> •Kyo met Badger when she was somewhere around two or three months old, when he was on one of his walks. He never saw where she came from, only that she appeared behind him at some point and followed him, yowling and grabbing at his ankles, for three blocks, until he reached his bench at the park, at which point she did her level best to climb into his lap. He picked her up to spare his legs from little kitten needle-claws and told her to quit badgering him, she started rubbed her face against his chin, purring. He’s been lost to her whims ever since.  
> •She has an uncanny knack for knowing when Kyo is crying, no matter how quiet he tries to be about it, and will only let him be for a few minutes before demanding he pay attention to her rather than feel sorry for himself.  
> •She has a tendency to steal Kyo’s eyepatch when he’s sleeping and hide it.
> 
> Osamu:  
> •Soejima considered Osamu to be his best friend; a kindred soul who shared (or could be gradually brought to share) his sadistic predilections. Soejima’s willingness to kill Kaoru over his attempted interference of this relationship was more about the eagerness with which Soejima killed people, rather than the strength of his devotion to Osamu.  
> •Kaoru never talks about him anymore, but he absolutely adored his older brother growing up. Osamu was his hero, and he loved him right up to the last second before he killed him, knowing that the man he’d once looked up to was lost to him forever and unwilling to allow a heartless doppelganger to walk around in his brother’s skin.  
> •Kaoru was the only person to attend his funeral, and is the only one who ever visits his grave.
> 
> Miscellaneous:  
> •All of the dogs on Kaoru’s property are named after Gundam mobile suits or characters.  
> •Die hates courtesans, and generally refers to them as ‘harpies.’ He was quietly thrilled when Kaoru got rid of Nozomi; they’d never gotten along.  
> •Kaoru has bottomed for sex all of once in his life. It was with Yoshiki. They don’t speak of it.
> 
>  
> 
> I think that’s it! This is my second attempt at a fic following the Kyo-becomes-Yakuza-Kaoru's-captive premise, and while there are a ton of parallels between this and the first one, I think I find this to be the stronger story. Thank you all for your support throughout this little experiment, I hope it was worth sticking around for! There will very likely be a few oneshots or shorts to supplement this later on, and I look forward to seeing some of you there as well!


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